


The Various Triumphs of Mischief Bilinski

by Whispering_Sumire



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (also in a sense), (as in 80k or so before stetersteter slow), (in a sense), (s), -Ish, Adoption, Amorality, Angst and Feels, Attempt at Humor, Background Relationships, Bigotry & Prejudice, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Communication, Complex relationships, Conflict, Consequences, Dreams and Nightmares, Druids, Emissaries, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Everybody Lives, Family Drama, Fictional Religion & Theology, Fluff, Friendship, Gods & Goddesses, Good Alpha Pack, Good Jennifer Blake, Guilt, Heartfelt Conversations, Heavy Angst, Helpful Alan Deaton, Honesty, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Karma - Freeform, Lawyer Peter Hale, M/M, Magic, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Miscommunication, Morally Ambiguous Character, Mysterious Alan Deaton, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Nudity, POV Outsider, Pack Bonding, Pack Dynamics, Pack Family, Pack Politics, Platonic Relationships, Plotty, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Puppy Piles, Religious Conflict, Rituals, Siblings, Slow Build, Slow Romance, Stiles Stilinski Has Panic Attacks, Stiles is Chaotic Good, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Trust, Werewolf Culture, Werewolf Politics, Worldbuilding, character driven, extremely flowery language, handwavey legalities, vengeance is best served bloody
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:54:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 51
Words: 116,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22989676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whispering_Sumire/pseuds/Whispering_Sumire
Summary: "Hello, Chris," sings a honeyed voice from behind.Chris' attention snaps toward the intruder, his gun already out of its' holster and aimed atwhoeverit is — a boy, apparently, with braided russet hair, a red jacket, and wise eyes. He's wearing a gas mask, but Chris can tell by the way his eyes crinkle around the edges, the way sun-burnt sand swirls in his irises, that he's smiling.Chris cocks his gun."You killed my father," he says."No offence, but he totally deserved it," the stranger agrees with cheerful solemnity."What thehellare you doing in myhome?"Chris demands. The kid is perched on a windowsill in Chris' office, as nonchalantly as if this were something he did every day, as if they werefamiliar."I was just wondering," the kid speaks softly, fond amusement sewn through with a peculiar resignation, "how you'd feel about putting down some nazis?"[Or: The one where Stiles goes back in time and subsequently fucks with everything.]
Relationships: Derek Hale & Laura Hale & Peter Hale, Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Everyone & Everyone, Jennifer Blake & Kali, Jennifer Blake & Stiles Stilinski, Kali & Stiles Stilinski, Laura Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Peter Hale & Sheriff Stilinski, Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski & Original Character(s)
Comments: 2334
Kudos: 4862





	1. Deucalion, Paige, and The Argents

**Author's Note:**

> So, hi  
> This particular fic has been in my WIP pile for over a year and I kind of got sick of seeing it there, and then I looked at it and was like _holy shit_ because my writing style has evolved so much from my baby fanfic writer days. So I edited it. And I'm eh, fairly certain I'll be able to wrap it up quickly?  
> We'll see, we'll see, we'll see  
>  **AN :** Tags are subject to change! Check them and re-check them if you're worried. I'll put warnings in the notes if I feel there's a need for them.
> 
> Okay, that's it from me, read on and enjoy my loves

Deucalion stares at the stranger in front of him, dazed.

The gaseous wolfsbane has vanished as if it had never been there in the first place.

Blood drips from their steel baseball bat into a gleaming crimson puddle on the cracked concrete floor.

"You good?" the stranger asks through the obscurity of their gas mask, like they aren't standing above the bludgeoned carcass of the man who had been trying to kill Deucalion for no real, conceivable reason other than some senseless, brutish idealism.

"Yes," Deucalion manages at length. "How—? Why—?"

"Just tryin' to keep the peace, dude." The stranger tosses him a tape recorder, black tea eyes blistering in their intensity. "I got his whole supervillain monologue on that thing — make sure it gets to the right people and his death should be cleared, it was well within the rights of authorized self-defence and Hunters' Code Regulations. Who knows? Maybe with him dead your vision will actually _get_ somewhere. Fair warning, though: the only Code-worthy Argents that I know of are Chris, Allison, and _maybe_ Rohese. So, y'know," he waves a hand generally, "try not to get dead and all that jazz."

"I... thank you."

"I don't need you to fucking _thank me_ , Duke," the stranger says on his way out. "I need you to be one of the _good_ guys."

* * *

The Hales are told of this momentous derailing of a massacre three days exactly before Paige Krasikeva comes sobbing and hyperventilating to their door.

She tells them a big, looming man with glowing red eyes tried to _eat_ her. She tells them a guy, maybe a little older than her, in a gas mask and a red jacket with a steel bat saved her.

"He just said _run,_ and to-to beat some sense into Derek, because his insecurities almost cost me my life, and, um," she sniffles, scrubs at her face like a child who, striving to stave off sleep so as not to be caught by the monsters lurking under their bed, might dig their knuckles into their eyes and drag them down their cheeks. "H-he said to tell Peter that if he pulls something like this again, he'll lace all of his tea with white wolfsbane? I, um," she scoffs out a choked laugh, "I don't know what that means."

Talia leans back in her chair with a slow exhale and decides to call a Pack-meeting within the next twenty-four hours to discuss the issue, because she seems to have less than half of the information, and that is _not_ tenable.

The information, when she demands it, comes easily, and she's half inclined to make good on their mystery stranger's threat by the end of it, because _really?_

She can understand, to a degree, what they both must've been thinking: Peter had hoped this would be the strategy that'd lure Ennis away from the idea of revenge with finality, Derek had hoped that Turning Paige would lead to his happily forever after, and their idiocy had played off of each other oh, so perfectly. 

Talia shouts herself hoarse, lecturing them on the proper procedure surrounding offering a civilian the Bite, about _not_ making unilateral decisions, about how cruel they've been to Paige in all their nearsighted foolishness. Derek is slouched and chagrined, Peter seems to understand logically, but his emotions are hidden so well behind a blank facade that she can't tell if she actually got through to him.

When this is done, Talia wonders if either of them knows of Paige's saviour, since he'd seemed to know so much about _them_ , but all she gets in that vein is confusion (Derek) and intrigue (Peter).

The next day she visits an old friend of hers to vent a little, only to be surprised by Lorraine saying:

"Wait. A gas mask and a baseball bat?"

"Yes," Talia draws out the word suspiciously.

"He's the one who saved my Maddy," Lorraine tells her. "The one who gave me all those books and told me to have a chat with Alan about what I'd been experiencing — which is how we met, remember? He popped up with Meredith, about... a month and a half later, before disappearing again."

"You're serious?"

"Yes! I've always thought - I mean, after I learned more about this stuff - that he was another Pack's Druid, and maybe he heard me wailing? Decided to do something about it? Because from what Maddy's told me, he _teleported_ her and her whole boat from the eye of that storm just like-" she clicks her fingers- " **that.** And Meredith told me he sucked her scream right out of the air when she accidentally released it in school, before it could hurt anybody."

"Huh," Talia says. "He's certainly been busy. But he isn't a Druid."

"He isn't?"

"He _can't_ be. Druidic power doesn't work like that, and it's certainly not that... grandiose."

But the question remains, then, if he isn't a Druid, _what **is** he?_ How is he doing this, and, perhaps most important, _why?_

* * *

"Hello, Chris," sings a honeyed voice from behind.

Chris' attention snaps toward the intruder, his gun already out of its' holster and aimed at _whoever_ it is — a boy, apparently, with braided russet hair, a red jacket, and wise eyes. He's wearing a gas mask, but Chris can tell by the way his eyes crinkle around the edges, the way sun-burnt sand swirls in his irises, that he's smiling.

Chris cocks his gun.

"You killed my father," he says.

"No offence, but he totally deserved it," the stranger agrees with cheerful solemnity.

"What the _hell_ are you doing in my _home?"_ Chris demands. The kid is perched on a windowsill in Chris' office, as nonchalantly as if this were something he did every day, as if they were _familiar._

"I was just wondering," the kid speaks softly, fond amusement sewn through with a peculiar resignation, "how you'd feel about putting down some nazis?"

Chris takes a moment to try and reconcile this proposition with logic. Naturally, he comes to the conclusion that this kid must be crazy.

"... What?"

"They call themselves the Dread Doctors. Actually, saying they're _nazis_ might be overselling it — or underselling it," the kid muses, then shrugs. "Either way, you'll help me."

Chris huffs out his incredulity and ire, "Are you arrogant? Or just plain stupid?"

The kid chuckles, slides a thick-packed manila envelope out from behind his back and tosses it to Chris. "If you don't help me I'll kill your sister, too, instead of, say... handing that over to the police? She's going down one way or another, Chris, but this option means that she'll live to see another day. Pick your poison, man."

The manila envelope holds enough collected evidence to put anyone away for life: files upon files describing in detail how Katherine Argent had seduced young boys from well-established families, how she'd burnt their houses down with said family inside, and how she'd left every boy she'd seduced as the fire's only living survivor. Two of her victims committed suicide, one is in a psych ward, and another - as fucked up as he is - is willing to testify.

"Fuck," Chris breathes.

"Yeah," the kid says grimly, "I had worse on your dad. Look, I'm not doing this to, like, fuck your family, or to randomly murder a bunch of people — your dad and your sister lost sight of the Code a _long_ ass time ago. I'm just doing what I need to do to protect the people I love. And, hey, at least I'm giving you a _choice_ here, right?"

"It's not much of one," Chris murmurs lowly as he looks through pictures and, worse still, the proof that these Packs were _good_ for their communities, all stable and Code-bearing 'weres right up until his baby sister lit them up. She'd had no reason to do this. _None._ And yet.

"No," his blackmailer agrees quietly, buttery sunlight melting over all his angles and sharp edges, painting him too goddamn young for the conversation they're having, "but it's more than she deserves, isn't it?"

"Yes," Chris agrees, sliding the disastrous contents of the manila envelope back home, "it is." He squares his shoulders and looks at the kid dead on, "So, these _Dread Doctors..."_

* * *

Around a month after the Paige incident, and Derek's still not talking to him. Peter wonders if he should be less hurt by it than he is, but he can't seem to shake the feeling that, despite trying only to do his _job_ \- he is the Left Hand, after all, observing threats and strategically disposing of them is what he _does_ \- he fucked up.

"Peter," Talia calls down the basement stairs, her voice a shock through the silence of their library, "with me."

"Where to?" he asks, closing the book he'd been poring over, trying to find some information on the newest supernatural oddity that's been plaguing Beacon Hills.

"Argent called, he wants to renew the treaty."

"Seriously?"

When they arrive at the set meeting location (a traditional style sushi bar with private rooms. Peter has a sneaking suspicion that the Argents' connection with the Yakuza has something to do with it) all they find is one Chris Argent with a large binder full of papers in front of him.

"Victoria didn't want to do this," he tells them, point-blank. "But I've looked it over, and this is — it's much better than the treaty we have now. There are a lot more contingencies for both of us and there's more accountability, it's-" he huffs something incredulous and mildly indecipherable. "It's _good."_

"You and your Matriarch didn't write it?" Talia asks, flipping through it herself and making appreciative noises as she does.

"My Matriarch didn't want shit to do with it, but we're being blackmailed so we don't have much of a choice."

"Blackmailed?" Peter inquires curiously as he takes the binder from his Alpha — whoever did write the treaty did _damn_ good work, it's effectively devoid of loopholes, and subclause 489b simply states: _Peter, I know you'll want to push your boundaries. Don't._

He nearly chokes on startled laughter when he reads it.

"There was this kid, he may sound familiar: red jacket, gas mask, his weapon of choice is a steel baseball bat? He talked like he knew you, but that may not mean much, he talked like he knew _me._ He did, I guess. Enough about my little sister to get her life without a chance of parole (not that I'm saying she didn't deserve it, for what she did), enough about the whole Clan to bury us and most of the people we've come into contact with since medieval times..."

"Your sister's in prison?" Talia asks, dumbfounded, as Peter finds at least six more easter eggs, four directed at him, two directed at Derek, and one directed at Victoria Argent.

"As of yesterday," Chris confirms. "Mom and I saw that she went easy and we have people stationed at the prison she's at to make sure she stays. The council wasn't too happy with her behaviour."

"He went to the _council?"_

"No," Chris says, "I did. She massacred at _least_ five families, committed statutory rape and abuse toward at least as many minors, all because they were werewolves. It wasn't just going against the Code, it was — what she did was just, wrong. On every level." He snorts derisively, "My dad was worse, according to Mischief. he didn't show me any proof of that - said he wanted to spare me _some_ \- but considering everything else he had, I'm inclined to believe him."

"I'm so sorry, Chris," Talia sighs, shaking her head in sympathy.

"His name is Mischief?" Peter finds himself asking, he's already located eight more, a few for Cora, some for Chris, one, even, for little Allison — for when she's older, he's assuming.

"That's the one he gave me to call him by. He's a- he's a good guy, he certainly has your best interests at heart, and, from what I can tell, ours, too."

Talia nods, gives Peter the okay, and he's smiling despite himself when he signs the dotted line, handing the binder back to her to do the same.

Normally these things take longer, take hours of negotiation and re-negotiation and hashing out the particulars at least three times over before there's any end in sight. Not so, today, and since the room's been booked with their usual habits in mind they decide they might as well take advantage of it and actually partake in the services the restaurant provides.

Chris tells them more about Mischief over supper: the hunt he did with him, how old he thinks he is ("Seventeen, at _most."),_ how the kid fights like he's dancing, babbles incessantly, and should never be left in a room alone with his wife. They tell Chris the handful of stories they have (from Deucalion to Paige and Lorraine, along with a few other tales through the pipeline) and the theories: Deaton's idea that he may be a Spark, Talia's that he may be working for another Pack, Peter's that he has clairvoyance of some sort.

Eventually, though, over the sushi, sashimi, and saké, the conversation drifts, to Derek's relationship problems, to Chris and Victoria wanting to move back to Beacon Hills, to the idea that Cora, Gabriel, and Allison could actually be _friends_.


	2. The Tates

Eve puts her foot down _hard_ on the brakes when a woman suddenly materialises in front of her car.

The woman's grin is a moon-sliver of bone gleaming in the darkness. Her chest expands with a deep inhale. Her mouth opens. A thunderous howl storms out of her body and crashes violently into the car.

Kiley cries out, terrified. Malia whimpers, but, Jesus, she puts herself protectively in front of Kiley anyway. Eve is scrambling into the back seat with her daughters when, confused and agitated, the woman howls again, only to be cut off by a baseball bat to the face. All Eve can see of the wielder is their crimson jacket fanned out behind them on the swing and the glinting steel of their weapon.

The woman struggles, but the new guy bears down on her. Eve's not sure what he does but the woman's eyes roll up into the back of her head and her body jerks and twitches for a few sickly moments as the guy eases her to the ground.

Then he looks at the three of them, huddling in the backseat, and his eyes make Eve think, hysteria bubbling up her throat, of apple juice. Her phone chimes and she startles. When her eyes dart frantically back to the scene, the woman and the guy are both gone.

Her phone chimes again, twice.

Breathless, Eve chances a glimpse at it: 

_go to Talia Hale_  
_tell her the desert wolf is in town_  
_Re: Sub-Clause: 340c_

* * *

**Clause 340 :** Argents must be informed of all supernatural entities within Hale Pack territory.  
• **Sub-Clause 340a :** If for any reason an entity is unknown to the Hales, until it is known, refer to Clause 42.  
• **Sub-Clause 340b :** Supernatural entities who have not broken the Code are under Hale jurisdiction [ref.—Clause 20]; if they have broken the Code refer to Clause 119; if someone is in immediate danger refer to Sub-Clause 119e.  
• **Sub-Clause 340c :** If a supernatural entity is in immediate danger, whoever is most capable must provide sanctuary and a meeting will be called under Sub-Clause 24d to negotiate a permanent and practical solution that will not engender any harm to the parties involved.  
• **Sub-Clause 340d :** If a civilian knit* witnesses a supernatural phenomenon refer to Clauses 22, 30, 42, 119, and their Sub-Clauses; if a supernatural knit is involved, refer to Clauses 23, 49, 121, 189, and their Sub-Clauses.  


Peter, I know tact isn't your specialty, but charisma _is_. I beg of you, use that.

_* - KNIT: Not in the know_

* * *

Peter remembers the only time he's had his memories consensually removed by his Alpha. Well, he doesn't actually _remember_ it, per se, which is kind of the whole point — but he still has the video-letter he'd sent to himself and he knows what he'd said in it: that he was doing it to protect someone he cared about, that he'd discussed it with Talia, that it was his decision, and that it was for the best.

Now, with the Tate family under their roof, apparently on the run from the Desert Wolf - a former, mildly embarrassing tryst of his - Talia's standing in front of him with her claws out and an implacable look on her face.

"It's Malia, isn't it?" Peter asks, even though he already knows, even though his wolf is running laps within him, eager, wanting nothing more than to curl up with their pup, _protect her._

"Yeah."

He nods in understanding, bows his head.

"This will hurt," she warns him.

"It doesn't matter," he says. "If forgetting her then kept her safe, and remembering her now will do the same, I have no choice. Just do it, Tal."

 _Hurt_ is a fucking understatement, having claws embedded just under your skull, so close to your spine, is _agony_ , but he maintains.

Twelve months of black swirl in his mind, flash, take the shape of Corrine, her inconsolable _fury_ when the pregnancy test came back positive, when it turned out that abortion wasn't a viable option; Talia providing their home, her services as midwife and doula; Corrine hating and hating; Peter dealing with college, consorting with foreign Packs, studying, travelling, hunting, taking his place as the Left Hand — he hadn't been _ready_ for a child, and, as cruel as it may seem, he hadn't really wanted one. Putting her up for adoption had been the right thing to do, for both of them, and finding someone within Beacon Hills to adopt her - so that when she came of age Talia could help her with the inheritance of her powers, accept her into their Pack or find another for her to fit into - had been easier than they'd thought it would be.

But, within the last two months of her pregnancy, Corrine became increasingly vile, and Talia began to worry, Peter with her, for the child's safety. So after the baby was harmlessly delivered and given to the Tates, Talia took Corrine's memories of them, and Peter offered his own in case of any form of capture and interrogation, and they had hoped that that would be enough.

Apparently not.

Peter hisses as Talia slides her claws out of his skin, shivers with the after-shocks of it.

"You've already called a meeting with the Argents?" he asks, and if his voice is a little hoarse, Talia, mercifully, ignores it.

"Yes. I think our best option now is to be up-front about everything, with both the Argents... and the Tates."

Peter swallows, chuckles something manic and self-deprecating. Talia frowns slightly, concern rippling over her features.

"No, it's just," Peter snorts. "Charismatic, not blunt."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"Nothing," Peter tells her softly. "Nevermind."

He takes a deep breath, exhales it very, very slowly, and rights himself from where he'd been bowed over his desk, carefully extracting his fingers from the splintered wood. Privately, he thinks about where the treaty had been very supportive of 'un-knitting' involved civilians. Honestly, he'd never totally agreed with that sentiment (though he'd found it somewhat charming). Right now he's too shit-scared at the prospect of telling his daughter's family that the supernatural exists, and that their daughter just happens to be a werecoyote whose mother is out to kill her for her future abilities, to be anything but equally grateful and resentful of it. At least they'll have a Pack of werewolves and a Clan of Hunters on their side.

"Today's going to be a long day," Talia sighs, as if reading his mind. 

Peter huffs wry agreement, before another thought occurs to him: "What do you think Mischief did with her? With Corrine, after smashing her face in and injecting her with whatever it was he injected her with?"

Talia stops still for a moment, nose scrunching up as she thinks it over. "Who fucking knows," she declares eventually, unhappy at another mystery unsolved.

They'll discover, later, that he dropped her in the middle of Mexico without doing anything beyond what Evelyn Tate had witnessed that night from the back seat of her car. After the Argents have trapped her and the Hales have dragged her to Eichen, they find a wooden box on their doorstep addressed to Peter. Within, a triskelion pendant that shimmers and smells the mercury-ozone of magic along with a yellow post-it note that simply states:

 _Good Job,_  
_Be Safe_  
_—Mischief_

"Who _is_ this guy," Laura breathes - not for the first time - after seeing it.

Peter shakes his head, because he doesn't know, but he thinks Mischief might be a miracle incarnate, considering all he's done that they _know_ of.

He thinks about his daughter hugging him goodbye, about the Tates smiling, harrowed but relieved, as they told him they wouldn't mind at all if he wanted to visit every once in a while. He puts the necklace on.


	3. Alicia Boyd

Alicia is ten years older than her little brother. This has caused fights and tension and irritation and, occasionally, begrudging closeness. He's often made her responsibility, because she's old enough that her parents think she can handle it, and that she ought to — which is how, of course, she ends up taking Vernon trick-or-treating while her parents sit pretty at home. She's still grumbling about it as they walk up the long path of leaf-strewn road to the next residential area.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs beside her. 

Alicia sighs, and shakes the hands they've got laced together. "Oh, hush-up," she says. "It's not your fault. You wanna know something? I probably wouldn't be so pissed at mom and dad if I weren't so chock-full of all these pesky teenaged hormones." Vernon screws up his face and she laughs at him, "Hey! Don't look like that! You'll be in the same position in four years, you know: screaming at the world and slamming doors and shit all because you're growin' up and you can't help yourself."

"I won't be like that," he says, shaking his head, "no _way_."

"Oh, Boydie-pooh, I promise you you will. There's no getting out of it, it's _science."_

He narrows his eyes at her, tsks, and shakes his head again. "Uh-uh, you're makin' that up."

"Now, now, Boyd, has your big sister _ever_ lied to you?"

He laughs, loud and long. _"Yeah,"_ he says, in his best 'no-duh' voice, "All the _time_ , 'licia."

She gasps, mock wounded, and is about to snark some silly little thing back to him when an abrupt and violent noise rings out from somewhere deep within the Preserve. They both freeze, just jerk to a stop like all of their instincts demand they be _prey._

Twigs start crack-snapping in the distance and Alicia's breath goes ragged as her fretful eyes scan the trees bordering the right of their path. She pieces together five non-existent monsters made of nothing but branches and wind and dark before a booming crash makes her jump out of her already crawling skin.

"Alicia?" Vernon whispers, and her heart constricts sharply inside her chest. "What was that?"

"I-I don't know — we gotta go. We-" There's a distant howl and a wood-thrashing sound. It's almost at the edge of the Preserve, now, and she's sure she sees something — _real_ this time, like a thin, spindly giant. With _teeth_. "RUN!" she shouts hoarsely, pushing Boyd forward. "Go, go, go, go, go, go."

She rushes him toward what she can only hope is safety, but she hadn't worn the fucking _shoes_ for this, and the next thing she knows she's tripping over her own stupid fucking costume-tail and the impossible creature is _behind_ them now. It's taller than the trees, all cigarette-ash body made of needly talons and bones and smoke. It leers down at her with wretched hollows, eye sockets filled with void. Alicia is stunned by the sudden realization that she isn't going to make it out of this.

"'licia!" Boyd screams ahead of her, and her mouth goes dry. The trembling terror in his voice is so goddamn _visceral_. That's her baby brother right there. Fuck.

"RUN!" She screams back, but she knows that won't be enough, she has to dig deeper. God, forgive her. "If you don't I'll _never forgive you_ , God _damn it_ , Boyd, _RUN!"_

She hears his footsteps thunder away and sobs, in relief or pure pants-wetting terror, she doesn't fucking know.

"What are you?" she hiccups through the salt of her own snot and tears as she tries to convince her jelly limbs to crawl away. The creature draws nearer, makes a chittering sound so much like a laugh that her stomach static-tingles and the back of her throat sours. "What _are_ you?"

"I actually don't know," someone says calmly, startlingly, before a gunshot booms across the air. The creature wails, like gravel poured into a woodchipper, loud and catastrophic as it withers down to almost nothing. "I couldn't find it in the Bestiary or anything, but I figured, mistletoe is pretty much the end-all-be-all, and hey, look at that, it worked."

Alicia watches in horrified fascination as the monster further crumbles, disintegrates, revealing the boy behind it. He looks about her age, dressed up as some modernized red-riding-hood with a high-grade gas mask and a fucking gun, and all she can think is: _Do monster-hunters celebrate halloween?_

"Are you Alicia Anne Boyd?"

"Y-yes?" She rasps, confused and shaking and drenched in a cold sweat. Her insides feel numb.

"Okay, Alicia, I think you're in shock, so I'm going to help you get to your little brother, alright?" The boy pockets his gun, steps forward, and bends down to help her up. Strands of long, dark hair sweep out from underneath his hood to tickle her sticky cheeks.

"Is he- is-" She chokes on the words as he hauls her upright and slings an arm around her shoulders companionably, like they're friends, like he isn't the only thing keeping her standing right now.

"He's absolutely fine, Alicia. And you're going to be fine, too. You're safe, now, you're both safe."

A harsh shudder racks through her. She looks over her shoulder at what is now no more than a scorch mark on the black-top. _"Fuck."_

The boy laughs, "Fuck is about right."

"What the hell was—. No. No, don't tell me. You saved my life, I don't know how or why or from _what_ and I don't fucking _want_ to. Just... thank you."

"You're very welcome," he says as they finally catch sight of the nearest house. A rich, white, suburbanite thing that probably has candy for _days_ , and if she weren't so fucked up right now she'd probably give a damn. "And if you ever change your mind, have a talk with the Hales about what you saw tonight."

"You mean, like, Philip Hale?" She asks, shocky and incredulous, "The _guidance counsellor?"_

"Yes," he tells her solemnly, "exactly like him."

Alicia swallows roughly, and nods (she's pretty sure talking has officially left the building: climbed out the goddamn window and hitch-hiked somewhere with harsh, gravelly, sandpaper terrain, if her throat is anything to go by).

She isn't sure she'll ever take him up on that, but it's nice to know that if she ever _wanted to_ , she could.


	4. Derek Hale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Wherein Peter and Derek deal with their shit._
> 
> **AN :** I'll admit, this chapter came out of nowhere and totally got away from me. Also, it's doin' its best to live up to that family drama tag.

Everyone in the Pack always assumes that Laura is Peter's favourite. (It comes with her similarly abrasive personality, which impersonates an epic natural disaster on the best of days.)

This is not the case.

Talia has four children, three of whom are destined for some greatness or other: Philip is their Emissary's apprentice, Laura is the Alpha's heir, and Cora is to be folded into the curadh gan chloí when she comes of age. Derek has never been annexed into any such delineated providence, and so remains an outsider amongst his siblings.

In truth, he remains an outsider amongst most of the rest of the Pack as well.

Derek has always been a quiet, wolven boy, so much more animal and instinct than he is human. Talking has never been his strong suit, even when something was wrong, even when it seemed he _wanted_ to.

Peter remembers when Derek was much younger, how he used to go up to a packmate because he was in need or want of something, only for his words to forsake him the moment he got their attention. And then he would be stuck. And then they would be stuck because he was stuck. Too often, this packmate would give up on the staring contest waiting game and tell him to come back when he had something to _say,_ or else they'd brashly interpret his silence so they didn't have to deal with it any longer.

He remembers how most used to say _troublesome,_ of the little boy. 

Laura, however, had doted on him. Her intuition would thrive on his silence, where others' would fail, and Derek rarely needed to direct her; she'd simply guess at what he wanted or needed and spoil him with it the moment she'd gotten it.

Peter remembers, too, the tantrums Laura used to throw on Derek's behalf when whatever a packmate had decided he'd meant was so utterly incorrect that he'd end up having to wait for her help.

Even Talia occasionally fell victim to this cycle of impatience and misunderstandings.

Peter hadn't.

Not because of any particular insight or presentiment, but because, if Peter Hale was anything, he was _patient._

Whenever he was the one Derek came to, Peter would wait. He would not get annoyed at Derek for taking too long, he would not speak _for_ him, he would not ridicule or abandon or break.

If he had to carry Derek around on his hip to do it, he would.

And as time wore on, Peter became the one Derek would come to, second to Laura.

Something which Laura noticed.

And when she realized Derek's growing affection, she firmly initiated their togetherness at every opportunity — otherwise, Laura would declare later, Derek would've just skulked in Peter's shadow forever, scowling, always too shy to come into the light.

(If anything, the only reason Peter and Laura are close at all is because of Derek. Her gratitude to him for understanding and indulging her little brother, and their conspiratorial exasperation in the face of their packmates inability to handle Derek's social and emotional clumsiness inspired the intense regard they have for each other today.)

Of course, Derek did manage to grow into himself, losing some of his dour and laconic. But the intimacy he had with Laura and Peter in childhood remained, rich and profound. Everyone knew that they were the ones Derek loved best.

And, for Peter, Derek has always been his favourite.

Derek, who is Talia's sweetest child. Derek, who has always been like a puzzle, a game, who needed strategies and careful dedication before he could share his secrets with you. Derek, who continues to carry that strange loneliness deep within him. 

Derek, who _still isn't talking to him._

It's been nearly half a year.

Peter is patient, yes, but _enough._

So he goes to Helena-Mae.

"You want to pick Derek up from school," she says, voice dripping with suspicion.

"Yes."

"Why?"

Peter rolls his shoulders and flexes his fingers. 

Helena-Mae ticks her chin down and subtly shifts her posture into fight-readiness.

He may be the Left Hand, but she is curadh gan chloí.

It is his duty to act as his Pack's strategist, ambassador, and assassin. He is their weapon.

The curadh gan chloí are the Alpha's enforcers and guardians. They are the soldiers, the shields, the armour. 

Helena-Mae's duty, in particular, is the security of the children. She is the one who decides when a child has enough control over their wolf to be allowed outside without a chaperone, allowed to go to a civilian school. She is the one who delegates drivers and cars for the children's pick-ups and drop-offs. Even if she has never spoken a word to that child, she is the one in charge of their safety.

"I need to speak with him," Peter says coolly, working out his play.

"The last time you _spoke_ with him, a girl almost got killed." Her voice is laced with steel and accusation.

Ah.

Peter lets his eyes lower as if shamed, colours his voice with sorrow and pleading, "I know. He's been avoiding me — he blames me, he has every right to, but how can I apologize if he never lets me anywhere near him?"

Helena-Mae's body has relaxed, her honey-laden beehive scent has lost some of its' chitinous musk, but her sea-cliff eyes are still craggy with misgivings.

Peter suppresses all the frustration and restlessness and demand, makes himself focus on his rooms without Laura's messes and Derek's shrewd questions; on his phone devoid of the usual grumpy, neurotic texts; on coming home from a negotiation or a hunt without Derek's cheered and relieved and infuriatingly sarcastic welcome; on his chesstable untouched because he wants to play with Derek so badly he can't stand the thought of playing with anyone else. His scent suitably flushed with regret and yearning, he looks back up at her and says, "I just need a chance."

"Oh, for heavens' sake, Peter," she snaps, as if she knows he's playing it up but can't quite help herself. _"Fine."_

* * *

When Derek exits Beacon Hills High, he discovers that Ben-J's already taken off with Henley and Senan's full-up.

He dawdles and fidgets and glowers furiously. He stalks away from Peter's conveniently waiting car without a second glance. Peter sighs expansively and rolls down the window as he pulls the car along Derek's defiant path.

"Nephew," he says with a measure of irritation.

Derek's face is thunder and lightning and heavy stormclouds that are too obstinate to allow themselves to rain.

"You're really going to walk all the way home?"

Peter had deliberately chosen today for his effort because of the weather. It was swelteringly hot, the sun a clean-sharp shriek in the sky that burrowed deep into your flesh and stretched interminably through muscle to slow-simmer your marrow. No werewolf would be able to stand it for long, least of all Derek, who is the least human of all of them.

"You know, I think you're actively producing enough water to kill the wicked witch of the west." Derek glares at him. Peter glares right back. "It's not a good look on you, if you're wondering."

"Go _away,_ Uncle Peter," Derek growls.

"I'd rather wait for the heatstroke, thanks," Peter says, flippant and annoyed.

Derek obstinately stomps through another block. Peter's car slinks along beside him, just as obstinately. Derek comes to a huffy, heavy-footed stop, mutters, "I can't _believe_ you," under his breath, and begrudgingly climbs into the car.

"Finally," Peter says, with feeling, as he rolls up the window and pulls away from the curb.

He lets Derek, sour-faced with arms folded across his chest, cool off for a few moments before he tries to reengage him. He settles in and steels himself for what he assumes is going to be a long drive and an even longer conversation.

"So, now that you're ruining my fine leather seats with your sweat-" Derek clicks his teeth at him. Peter's eyes flash but he otherwise ignores the ferine display- "perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me why you've been avoiding me?"

Derek says nothing. His scent is the mossy stones at the bottom of an ancient fountain, salt-touched and sunburnt, without its' usual clearwater freshness; the moss dry and brittle, the wish-tossed coins mouldy and green.

"I can guess," Peter says at last, when the silence has become suffocating. "Paige. Because I goaded you into wanting her to get the Bite?" He pauses. No change. "Because you two broke up? ...Because she could've gotten hurt, and you feel like that's my fault?"

"Yes!" Derek bursts out, irises flooding with molten gold, but he seems to almost immediately regret it. "No. Gods."

Peter presses his lips together and tightens his grip on the steering-wheel. "I made a mistake—"

 _"Mistake,"_ Derek laughs unhappily. "... Just a mistake?"

"Well, what would you have me call it?"

"I don't _know."_

Silence descends, thick and sticky and uncomfortable.

"Contrary to popular belief, and as much as I'd like to," Peter says, "I can't actually read your mind."

Derek casts a sullen look in his direction. Peter raises his eyebrows and gives him the floor. Minutes pass. It's wretched and awkward, but Peter waits. Peter has always, in some form or another, waited for Derek. This feels at once the same and so, so incredibly different.

"You did it on purpose," Derek finally breaks the impasse.

And Peter knows what he means: every conversation that led Derek to his decision was a carefully constructed thing meant to take him there. Peter had wanted Derek to step over that line. So he'd made him.

"Yes."

"I loved her," Derek says.

He says it with the same weight he says almost everything: the weight of someone whose words have been locked behind a cage of teeth and brutally chained to the tongue, so that their only conceivable retribution is to force you to look at them, really look, before they allow you to set them free.

Peter waits.

"I loved her," Derek says again, "and you _used_ that. You used _me."_ His voice crackles, the static of anguish clinging to every syllable, "Uncle Peter, I... have always trusted you. With everything. More than _Laura._ But I don't know if I can anymore?"

An ache opens up in Peter's chest, it yawns so wide so fast that he stops breathing — his eyes burn, harsh and vicious — he stops the car.

He says, with a kind of wild desperation he would normally find repulsive, "I'm sorry."

And for a moment, it's actually true.

Derek watches him. His cheeks are gathering rivers, his scent is gathering the sea, and he grimaces a little sob. "I don't think I believe you."

Silence descends again.

Derek is the one waiting, this time.

Peter resumes their drive. For two hours, he drives. They compose themselves and they wallow in the air conditioning and they don't speak a word to each other, don't even look at each other. They just exist in the same space, numbly, enduring.

* * *

"Do you know what the Left Hand is, Derek?"

They've stopped again. They're in a 24-hour flea market somewhere between California and Nevada. Peter has had to combat an exhaustive volley of texts from Helena-Mae (pissed off) and Talia (concerned bordering on incensed).

Derek doesn't look up from the hand-woven tapestry that's all red background and creeping, art nouveau alleycats. "Yes."

"Then you know why I did what I did?"

Derek sets the tapestry gently back down on its' place in the stall. "Yes."

"I was trying... I was trying to protect our Pack."

Derek's eyes are barred shutters, startling in their lack of warmth, in the knife-sharp pain they inspire. "Okay."

They purchase the tapestry, a few clothes and accessories for various packmates, and squash blossom quesadillas, fish tacos, and a mason jar of icy horchata before they leave.

Peter gets them a hotel in a tiny town called Lovelock. He settles Derek in with the crappy, outdated television and goes outside to call Talia to be summarily bitched out.

"You _kidnapped my kid,"_ is what her ranting eventually boils down to.

"I had a good reason," he says.

"By the everloving Gods, Peter."

"It's the weekend?"

"Oh, yes, it's the _weekend._ That makes this all perfectly acceptable, you godsdamned, gutterfucking, anally expulsive little _shit."_

"I love you, too, Tal."

Talia heaves a long, drawn-out sigh. "You're in so much trouble, Peter."

"I'd gathered."

There's a minute pause over the line, then: "I know you're not good at this, Peter, at people. Not really. You can play a person like a fiddle, but loving them? Being close to them? Being _honest_ with them? You suck at it."

"Fuck you." Knee-jerk, he couldn't have stopped that if he tried.

"Tell me I'm wrong, little brother," she says softly. Thirty seconds pass. "See? Just. Eat crow. Grovel at his feet if you have to. _Fix this._ And then come home, you stupid idiot."

"... Does that count as a double negative?"

"Oh, my Gods, you are _such_ an asshole."

"I know," Peter sighs contentedly.

They say their goodbyes and hang up.

Derek, when Peter returns to their room, is fast asleep.

* * *

They rise with the sun, and they're on the road again.

"I love you," Peter says, at a loss for most other things, and with his big sister's words ringing in his head. "You know that, don't you?"

"Yeah," Derek says roughly. "I love you, too."

"I know that your trust... I know I'm going to have to earn that back. And all I can think to do is promise that I'll never lie to you or go behind your back - for _anything_ \- again."

Derek holds out a pinky.

Peter eyes it dubiously and disdainfully.

Derek gives him a sardonic, expectant look.

Peter concedes to hooking his pinky in Derek's with a roll of his eyes and a, "I'll just cross my heart and hope to die next, then, shall I?"

"If that's your thing," Derek says with an air of fatalistic agreement, "sure."

Peter is torn between feeling enormously proud and exasperatedly vexed.

"Moving on," he decides. "I am sorry for my involvement in what happened to Paige. And I mean that. If an opportunity like that arose a second time, or if I had a do-over, I'd make different choices. But I should clarify that I'm not sorry for _Paige's_ sake. Every regret I have is for what I did to you: that you felt manipulated and betrayed, that I broke your trust, that I _hurt_ you. Do you understand?"

Derek digests that, says, "What if she'd gotten hurt? What if- what if she'd died?"

Peter takes a deep breath. "I—. Our Pack means everything to me. Nothing else has ever mattered."

Derek's eyes travel over his profile, searching, dissecting him with an intensity that honestly makes it a bit hard to focus on the road. "So... you wouldn't have cared." His voice is soft, inflectionless.

"I wouldn't have cared," Peter agrees solemnly.

"I was the one who did it."

Peter blinks, eyebrows furrowing. "What?"

"It was your plan, but I didn't know that. I was so scared of losing her that I—. If it was a _mistake,_ I was the one who made it. I asked Ennis to give her the Bite. I didn't tell her anything. I was going to let him hurt her."

"Derek—"

 _"No,"_ Derek says, sharp and painful, lip curling over his teeth. "Listen to me. I know what you did but it's still my fault. If she had died, that would've been my fault, too. For the rest of my life." He sucks in a ragged breath, "For the rest of my life, Uncle Peter, she would've been dead because of me."

Peter's heart clenches sharply, his claws dig into the steering-wheel. The car is saturated with an ocean poured into a cracking, crumbling fountain full of coins meant for the eyes of the dead.

"I'm Pack, Uncle Peter."

_"Yes."_

"And our Pack means _everything_ to you," Derek grits out.

Peter forces himself to breathe. "Yes. Always."

"Then what do I mean to you?"

Peter pulls over and hauls Derek into an awkwardly contorted but godsdammit he doesn't _care_ hug, "Everything. Everything, of course you mean everything. I'm _sorry."_

"Okay," Derek says, curling his arms up Peter's back and holding on. "Okay," he says. "I forgive you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact! In my head, this impromptu road-trip begins on the day that Derek would've met Kate for the first time. Aren't ripple effects _fun?_
> 
> Speaking of ripple effects: in canon, Derek blamed himself far more than Peter, in my opinion, because he a) didn't know the full extent of Peter's plans/involvement, b) didn't get the full-force of a Talia rant, and c) was too busy grieving a girlfriend he wholly believed he'd killed. So, with this timeline, we have a much more conflicted Derek who, while he still hates himself for what he did/could've done, is also hardcore struggling with his Uncle's involvement.
> 
> ... cue family drama! yay?
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed! Leave a kudos, feed my cryptid author self comments, love all, and soulhugs~
> 
> (For those of you waiting on Stiles POV, I swear it's coming, just give it a minute, xoxoxo)


	5. Matt Daehler and The Laheys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to preface this with: Author knows nothing about the law, handwavey legalities abound, please ignore. And I love all your faces ✌
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Implied/Referenced Child Abuse (note: there is nothing implicit, graphic, or detailed), and drunkenness (the good, nothing bad comes of it, kind).

There is a kid in Noah Stilinski's office when he opens the door.

No one had warned him that there'd be a kid in his office when he'd open the door.

Noah leans out into the bullpen to check and sees that nobody's paying any attention to this situation, all business as usual. He looks back at the kid, sitting in an uncomfortable waiting chair in front of Noah's desk, messing with his phone.

Noah decides to roll with it. He moves to his own chair, places his takeout on the table in front of him, and says, "Hey, there. What can I do for you?"

Eyes that are an eery mirror of Claudia's, of his son's, flick up to meet his. It's not just the eyes, either, it's the lily-white skin and the sunflower seed moles and the silky waves of russet hair. Maybe, underneath that gas mask, it would be the nose and the cheeks and the lips, too. Static electricity skates up Noah's arms, raises hairs on the back of his neck.

"Hello, Deputy," the kid says, a hunted sort of despair warring with bright, heartbreaking joy in those sun-soaked irises.

Noah has to clear his throat twice before he can manage, "How did you get in here?" And even then, it comes out too rough, too quiet.

The kid slips something out of his pocket and tosses it at him: an exact replica of his own goddamned key-card.

"Wha—?"

"How did a girl you'd never met before know that your wife was dying in a hospital miles away?" the kid asks, not unkindly. "You learn not to question these things."

Noah's voice, his capacity to think any coherent thought, crumbles and breaks away like a sandcastle gulped down by the sea's relentless tide. 

The kid clicks off his phone and places a hand on Noah's desk, leaning forward as he shifts to stand. "Tomorrow at 10:59 PM, a little boy is going to drown at the Lahey house. I have no proof, and I know it's a lot to ask, but you're a good cop, Deputy Stilinski, and you're the only one I trust with this."

"... You're serious?"

"Deadly," the kid says, and between one blink and the next, he's _gone._ Disappeared like a vapour, like a ghost, like a _dream,_ and for all that Noah's half inclined to believe that it _was_ a dream, he still finds himself driving his cruiser down to the Lahey house at around 10:50. For morbid curiosity's sake, if nothing else.

He gets there just in time to pull a choking, wailing eight-year-old little boy out of the goddamn pool, arrest Keith Lahey for providing alcohol to minors, slap Matt Daehler's older brother upside the head for being an asshole, and have everyone call their goddamn parents so they can tell them _exactly_ what happened tonight and ask for a ride home.

Out of the goodness of his heart, Noah drags the Lahey boys back home with him for the night while their father is in lockup. Stiles takes to Isaac like gum to the bottom of a fucking shoe, while Isaac takes to Scott like a moth to a flame. Camden, on the other hand, is all jittery-simmer, halfway between bolting and lashing out every other breath. Noah can see the bruises, he can see the _signs,_ and he decides he's going to go _hard_ on this kid's father — in the meantime, he'll try to get the truth out of Camden. And after? He doesn't fucking know.

His home _has_ become a little empty, since Claudia died.

* * *

Peter honestly wasn't expecting his _day job_ to offer up yet another morsel on the ever-elusive Mischief. 

Nevertheless, after having charged one Keith Lahey with child abuse at the request of a very agitated Deputy, Peter had gotten just that.

When the trial had been won, Peter had drawn up adoption papers and the Lahey boys had officially become the Stilinski boys. Noah had been profusely grateful and Peter had come to the conclusion that Noah was a good, (mostly) morally sound, loyal sort of man. Someone who Talia would probably have an easier time being friends with, but who, in small doses, Peter figured he could enjoy the company of. Better to keep friends with the local authorities, after all.

Which was why, when Noah had said, "I need a drink," as the dust inevitably settled, Peter had joined him.

Many 'weres abstain from alcohol, since it doesn't affect them anyway and acquiring something to lace it with _safely_ is a hassle. Personally, Peter is rather fond of the taste and burn of certain spirits. He also enjoys _massively_ getting into contests with civilians who have no idea that they don't have a penny's chance in hell of drinking him under the table. It's the height of hilarity. It is also the birthing ground of secrets more commonly left to dust, all spilt out over beer-sticky counters, hemmed in by chatter and clinking glass and human fetor.

"Y'know," Noah slurs, "I never would'a known to've gone to ya, I - heh - I would'na even known to save... hmm, wasshisname, the kiddo," he waves his drink around in a vague gesture that means nothing at all and doesn't really help his difficult to follow ramble. 

Peter encourages the Deputy to keep at his story when he begins dawdling distractedly with all the manic glee of someone who actually _enjoys_ watching train-wrecks.

Noah purses his lips and narrows his eyes, "Ya think this 's _funny_ , huh? You godly toleranced bast'rd."

"Oh, yes. This is _glorious."_

"I'm... I'm gonna puke on you, an' all yer- yer fancy-fancy."

Peter raises his eyebrows, sceptical and amused. Noah's lips curl into a tiny smile even as he shakes his head, takes another sip.

"So, so. There's this kid, right? Maybe teenaged? Young man. Anyways, he's in my office, got a- got a _keycard_ an' everythin' - _hicc_ \- So's, so's he tells me, save a little boy from drowning, and I thought he wasn't even _real_ , but I went an' I did it anyway, and tha's how I found everything out, y'know, and then the _little_ one: Is-Isssssssaac. Him. He comes t' me, real skittish, 'nd says an _angel_ visited him, told me I'd save 'em. Then when I _did_ the angel told 'im he's s'posed t' gimme... Give me, uh," he scrabbles inside his back pocket, comes out with his wallet, and slides a mildly worn card from it. "Giv'me _this."_

Peter blinks in mild surprise when he looks at the business card and finds that it's one of _his._

"An', an'," Noah clears his throat roughly, "it was like the _stars aligned_ or somethin', because I sure as hell wouldn'a known to go save... D-Dae- Dah-? That _kid_. I wouldn'a. And without that, I never would'a met Isaac 'n Camden, never've _known._ And I sure as hell couldn'a afforded any sorta attorney, lawyer, whatever, but you- _you,"_ Noah hiccups and vigorously points his cup at Peter, sloshing his drink precariously near Peter's suit. "You jus' wanted me ta' be there for yer family — which is all sortsa weird, and I'm a little worried issa secret _mafia_ or something, an' maybe this'll all bite me in the ass later, but — not the point. I, uh... Where-" he bursts into a ruddy little fit of laughter- "where was I again?"

"Isaac's angel?" Peter prompts hopefully.

"Oh. Right. Umm. I asks him, 'whatch'yer angel look like?' He says to me, 'Oh,'" Noah snorts, "'he had a red jacket and a mask thingie over his face.' And I'm over here, like - _hicc_ \- it's the _same guy_. Same guy who tol' me to save that kid, brought me t'you, an' I... Was he an angel? D'you think? He looked so much like my _wife_ , Peter. Could he really have been an angel?"

"I don't know, Noah," Peter murmurs thoughtfully, twirling the card between his fingers. "I don't know."

* * *

Talia stares at Peter incredulously when he asks after some Luna's Monk, a tab of carefully procured and condensed aconite that mimics the effects of alcohol. He's always claimed that the tiny circular tablets are vulgar, preferring instead to do illegal, underground trading for aconite wine — the vintage, high-end stuff made by Druids and Fae and the occasional unknown other.

 _"Really?"_ she finds it necessary to ask.

"I have a drinking buddy," Peter explains, rolling his eyes at the need, "a human one. If I were never to get drunk in his presence he'd become suspicious." 

_Drinking buddy,_ Talia mouths disbelievingly. 

"It's Deputy Stilinski, I'll have you know. We've got the mayor, the school principals, and most of the business owners around town — we've even got the sheriff, but he's getting on in years and has expressed more than once his wish to retire. I have no doubts as to who will be taking his place, have you?"

"No," she relents, "and I understand. That's too important a position to lose. Is this you officially asking me to bring him in? To, uh, _un-knit_ him?"

Peter smiles wryly at the term, says, "No, not yet. But sometime in the near future, perhaps."

She nods and chooses a fountain pen with which to add Luna's Monk into the ledger, "I was gonna have to get some soon, anyway," she says. "For Róisín's twenty-first."

"Mmm. Oh, and, Tal?"

She glances up at him curiously.

"Mischief has struck again."

"You... you enjoyed saying that _way_ too much."

Yes. Yes, he absolutely did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed! All of your comments have been giving me life and, like, mainlining my productivity, so thank you from the bottom of my tired little soul, xoxoxo 🌺🌺🌺


	6. Julia Baccari

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear that Stiles' POV is just around the corner, really, I do. But some ish needs to happen first. Also, my world-building may've gotten a little out of hand in this chapter. Oops.
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Grief, Mentions of Torture and Death, Questionable Morality, Animal Sacrifices (not in explicit detail, the next warning has nothing to do with this one), Light Gore. Emetophobes beware, a thing happens.
> 
> I feel like all these warnings are making this chapter out to be far worse than it is... Ai, but do what keeps you safe & sane, dear readers, all the love, 🌺🌺🌺

Let the record show that, in the saving of one Paige Krasikeva, the ever-elusive Mischief did _not_ kill Ennis Edinger.

Instead, he'd summoned Deucalion and Kali to an abandoned warehouse via a series of misleadingly vague and ominous texts. There, they'd found Ennis, tied up and unconscious with a small piece of paper stapled to his chest. The paper had explained what the texts hadn't and had warned that, if they weren't careful, their good friend would either end up skewered by Talia Hale or bludgeoned to death by Mischief himself (nevermind the thrice-cursed Hunters and their foolishly ignored treaties).

Deucalion had immediately been reminded of his fateful meeting with Gerard, of a boy in a gas mask and a red hoodie armed with a steel bat, of all the rumours he'd begun keeping an ear to the ground for.

Kali, on the other hand, had known nothing. So, deeply troubled, she'd asked: "Who the hell is Mischief?"

And Deucalion had told her.

His answer had been enormously unsatisfying as it'd basically amounted to: _Nobody knows._ Nor were there any lingering scents to clarify.

Ennis is to Kali an idiot, meathead brother. She loves him but she recognises his flaws.

Lucas' death had hit him hard, aggravated him. Hunters had tortured and killed Lucas for no good Gods forsaken reason, and Ennis had _raged._ It'd seemed his rage had hit a brick wall, here — and while she'd been grateful that Ennis wasn't allowed to trip head-long over his grief into something like murder or pissing off the Hales or the Argents, she'd been frustrated, too.

The Hunters who'd caused all this strife had remained unstained by their sins. Ennis had been bested by a mystery. Deucalion had been in awe and agreement and otherwise unhelpful.

Something, Kali had decided, needed to be done, something had to give.

But first, Ennis had needed a little sense deep-clawed into his puny brain.

* * *

Kali brings her Emissary a small piece of paper brimming with thin-sloped amateur calligraphy.

"The guy who wrote this," she says grimly, "I want you to find him."

So Julia tries.

She gets lost in the Beacon Hills Preserve six times before accidentally stumbling upon an ancient, weathered stump. She marvels at it. If the tree were alive it would take her whole Pack to circle the trunk, with only a handful left over. Around its' roots wild barley grows, thick throughout the surrounding clearing. It smells fresh here, _clean._

She can feel a rich, intoxicating power sprawled out underneath the fertile soil like a lazy, blood-glutted lion. It seems to blink slumberously at her, bored and extremely unconcerned.

She tries to reach out, to test the stability and truth of it.

But the moment her essence brushes up against it — the field of wild barley, the tree stump, the power, falls away from her consciousness like guileful dream-dust. She is in the Beacon Hills preserve, surrounded by trees and insects and foliage and nothing extraordinary.

She has also lost her lead. Again. Dammit.

* * *

For two weeks she uses the small piece of paper to scry for its' writer. For two weeks her scrying sends her to the Beacon Hills preserve. For two weeks she, inevitably, gets lost in the woods there.

She's been careful not to burn out the trace Mischief had left behind in his writing, but no amount of care will make the echo of him last forever. She can feel it dwindling. Only, this is all they _have,_ and Kali gave her an order.

Julia hates disappointing Kali, marrow-deep.

So on the third week, she tries something different: a seeking ritual that requires burning the paper in a mortar full of crushed herbs and inhaling the fumes. This, of course, will destroy her resource, but scrying regularly is getting her _nowhere._

She has no choice.

So she crosses her fingers and she prays as the smoke curls thickly in the back of her throat and sets her eyes to stinging.

Here, a vision is supposed to overcome her to show her glimpses of items, environments, anything that would help her recognize the person the ritual's keyed into so that she can better discover them.

No vision comes.

She clenches her jaw and blinks away tears of frustration.

Damn.

_Damn._

* * *

"I'm so sorry, Kali."

Kali's eyes dim with her failure. Julia's heart sinks slowly into the depths of her stomach, leaving a shame-warm hollow behind.

"I swear to you I tried everything."

"I know you did," Kali says, frustrated. She searches Julia's face, sighs deeply, and smacks at Julia's shoulders as if to dust the discouragement right off of her. "You're fine," she tells her firmly.

Julia's heart lifts so fast her chest tingles, a reluctant smile fluttering to her lips when Kali's hands settle for a moment and squeeze reassuringly. "If you say so, Alpha," she allows at last.

Kali quirks a tried but resilient grin at her before Nunna begins calling her away for other matters.

Julia forces her to stay for a blessing, "It only takes _five seconds._ Just hold on." 

And Kali snorts, "Oh, good. You're back."

"Alpha. I am trying to concentrate."

"Yeah, yeah."

* * *

Ennis' truck rumbles up to the Giliberto Pack's compound during lunch a handful of days later.

Kali's thunderers howl and bark as they rally around the high, chain-link gate. Thomas scales the woven steel, whooping and ululating, waving expansively at Kyrie when he sees who it is. Kyrie pulls down the lever and Thomas gives the gate a jarring shake as it rolls open before leaping down and inciting the greeting cry. They all shout and trill and caper around Ennis' truck as it pulls slowly into the lot.

He laughs heartily as they draw him from the parking area through the red clay pathways and out into the bustling courtyard, where Nunna and Bambino and Jamie are already waiting with loaded plates and the typical offerings of respect given to a visiting Alpha who is also a well-liked friend.

While the rest return to their duties, Nunna leads Ennis over to her Alpha's table. She takes a pinch of the salt mixture from the bowl there and kisses it. Once Ennis has done the same she blows half of the powder into the air and throws the rest on the ground, stomping it delicately into the dirt. Ennis copies her and she smiles at him.

"May Their eyes be kind to you," Nunna says by way of goodbye, and leaves them.

"Ennis," Julia starts in immediately. "To what do we owe the honour?"

Kali, beside her, levels a half-irritated, expectant look at him. Really, it's only been a _month_ since the last region uniting incident — if there's been another one, she's going to scream. And then murder something. Several somethings, in fact.

Ennis sits across from them with a slight chuckle, "The Metzger Clan got _fucked."_

Kali and Julia both perk up in confusion and interest.

Ennis invests in his succulent, overstuffed cheeseburger for a moment before opening his mouth—

"Chew," Julia says, and for such a gentle woman her voice can take on a surprisingly sharp edge. "Swallow. Then speak."

Ennis rolls his eyes and exaggeratedly finishes his bite. "That Mischief asshole sent me a letter with a bunch of news clippings and shit. And before you say anything: I checked and made sure it was all legit, I didn't just go blindly believing the guy who bashed my brains in willy-nilly."

Julia makes a justifiably disgusted face at Ennis' vulgarity.

Kali, used to it, presses, "What happened?"

Ennis licks his chops and grins, wild and warlike, "He _conned_ 'em."

Kali blinks. "He what?"

"He turned some dude in their ranks and worked with him to steal every cent they owned right out from under their noses. And he made them look _really_ fucking bad while he was doing it."

Kali and Julia trade a stunned, half-disbelieving look. "How bad?" Kali asks cautiously, as if afraid looking this gift horse in the mouth will reveal tooth-rot. Or, perhaps, that the horse is imaginary.

Ennis scoops some glistening caramelized onions up from his plate and shrugs, "Like, no one'll ever work with them again, bad."

"Chew," Julia repeats, scolding. "Swallow."

Ennis flips her off like a dare and Julia frowns thoughtfully. Nothing good has ever come from that frown.

"If you don't mind your fucking manners you're gonna get yourself turned into a toad," Kali warns. "Quit your shit."

"All right, all right. Calm down, princesa."

Kali surreptitiously swats Ennis and says, "You still haven't told us _why,_ though. I'd like some details-" when he flashes his eyes at her for the slight, she smiles a mouth full of fangs- "please."

"You know, I thought you liked me," he muses theatrically, faux-wounded. "I thought I was your favourite."

"You _are,"_ she says. "Now get on with it."

So he does.

As it turns out, the Metzgers' had been dealing in guns (along with a few other, smaller side-hustles).

Mischief had somehow gotten into one of their more high-stakes illegal poker games, played, and intentionally lost big. Of course, he'd been invited back to play again. 

As he had continued to ingratiate himself with them, he'd managed to turn someone on the inside. His spy had told him enough that Mischief had been able to tip off the ATF in a way that screwed over the Metzgers' buyers, left them nearly untouched, and kept his spy anonymous. Seeds of distrust had thus been sewn within the Metzger Clan and without as the Hunters began a witch-hunt for the rat while their 'business partners' began to think that they were being cheated. Mischief had taken advantage of their tumultuous distraction by persuading the Head of the Main Family that he was on their side, he wanted to help.

And they'd fallen for it.

From there, Mischief had connected the Metzgers with new buyers who were less leery of them. Slowly but surely he'd begun to convince them that old friends were enemies and his people were the only ones who were honestly on their side. He'd made sure enough of _his_ deals went through smoothly that there could be no doubt.

And then he'd summarily pulled the rug out from under them: his people took their guns (along with whatever else), their money, and quite a few heads before disappearing off of the face of the earth as if they'd never existed at all; the Metzgers' 'business partners' had become so insulted and sure that the Clan had turned on them that all their interest had soured into kill-happy bad blood; and the ATF was keeping such a close eye that starting from scratch was nigh impossible.

Amidst the death count this whole mess had created, Lucas' killers could be counted. By their own Clan, they had been brutally tortured. And eaten. By rats.

(Which had, apparently, been the whole point.)

Ennis didn't say all this in so many words, most of it they'd actually find out later, but they were still riveted.

"You said he sent you a letter?" Kali asks, slow and leading, glancing over at Julia significantly.

Ennis guzzles down his beer, burps, and says, "Yup."

"May we have it?" Julia asks urbanely, despite the excitement glittering in her eyes. Kali hides a smile behind the rim of her cup.

"Why the hell not," Ennis shrugs, full-fed and easy.

* * *

"This time," Kali says, "we will help you."

And they do.

Her Pack builds a massive bonfire in the middle of the courtyard. They offer sacrifices of rabbit and deer to Dirgen of the woodlands and Paleadnysa, whose shoulders bear the moon. They sing and they dance under the velvety dark of twilight, flame-shadows rippling across their skin.

Kali howls and a wolven theme erupts around her, thick waves of beauteous music soaring through the firmament.

Julia's packbonds are rivers. As her Pack performs the ritual with her, giving her their love and their loyalty and their faith, those bonds become rain-swollen to flood until they are united within her, an intoxicating sea of power engorging her soul.

She opens her arms wide to the heat of the flames, to her people, to the sky.

The ground herbs are heaved into the fire, causing it to hiss and sizzle and swirl.

The letter is thrown in next, and the fire billows, flares, roars like a feral thing.

Julia inhales deep, deep, _deep._

The smoke casts a dark mist over her eyes, and hazy visions overcome her: a tree stump planted in a wild field of barley, an immaculate root-cellar with bright strips of coloured cloth hanging from knotted bark, a huge dog superimposed over a blue jeep, a seemingly never-lived-in studio apartment — familiar eyes, beloved eyes, gone limp with death — bloated corpses lining the streets, all buzzing flies and maggot rot — the earth running black with blood — all the good air is gone, do not breathe, do not breathe, _do not breathe._

Julia stumbles away from the warmth and the heavy, cloying air, her lungs convulsing. She chokes and coughs and heaves. Arms catch her and hold her up. She vomits all over the ground before her body will allow her another inward gasp.

"Gods," she sobs wretchedly. "Have mercy."

The bonfire is quickly doused.

Her Pack surrounds her. In the cool-sweet night air, bodies fold into an interwoven knot that rises and falls with each collective breath. They mourn with her, keening lowly for her pain. They press up close against her and pet her and croon soothing things.

She doesn't understand. Why would the ritual show her that? Why would it show her such indescribable horrors?

It didn't feel like backlash — from the spell itself or from being caught by its' subject.

And the dichotomy between what it made her see and reality is so _wide,_ and the emotion contained within it so wretched, that she cannot believe the spell was showing her Mischief's accomplishments or motivations. But if not that, then what?

How does that nightmare serve as an identifier?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed, soulhugs~, xoxoxo


	7. Sacramento

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :squints: Not entirely sure how I feel about this chapter, but I hope you like it? Writing fanfiction is one of the only things keeping me sane right now, but crippling anxiety doesn't quite lend to confidence in my writing ability :laughs nervously:. Anyway, _soulhugs to all the lovelies,_ xoxoxo
> 
> **Trigger Warnings :** Blink and you miss it r*pe mention. Child Abuse. Mild Body Horror. Homicidal Fantasies.

Sacramento lies at the southwest border of the Hale region, home to a reclusive Pack full of more Bitten 'weres than Born. They are volatile at best, and actively malevolent at worst. Despite this, Deucalion and Talia are determined to annex them into their region, into the treaties.

Ennis and Kali both are unbothered, grouchily indulgent, and already giving the whole affair their lukewarm support. Julia is less lenient.

While she whole-heartedly supports their kind intentioned campaign for peace, she's not sure this Pack, in particular, is going to be helpful.

Nevertheless, as the elected Emissary Julia's been doing her level best to initiate negotiations: she has given gifts, offered introductions, extended invitations to Ennis and Kali and Deucalion and Talia's respective territories, only to be stonewalled at every turn.

She is outside of a Diner of probable ill-repute, preparing for yet another meeting with her infuriating Sacramento counterpart when she sees the dog.

The same massive black dog she'd seen in her vision months ago. A dog that part of her is very fiercely suggesting ought to be a jeep (that's probably just the sleep deprivation and stress talking). A dog that can't be here, because she had thoroughly convinced herself that the near-mythic Mischief wasn't one of those people you could just find, let alone _stumble upon._

The dog flickers its headlight eyes at her and makes a sound like an engine refusing to start, Dirgen have mercy.

"Jennifer," someone says, low. It isn't her name, but it shocks through her like jumper cables clamped onto the notches of her spine anyway.

Gas mask, red jacket, sans the steel baseball bat but it's him. There he is. Mischief.

He looks... like he's playing truant. Like there's some high school somewhere that's missing an oddly dressed student creeping through its' halls. It is so jarring as to dizzy her: this is the one they have been hearing ascend into legend, story by story? _This_ is him?

"My name's Julia, actually."

The wind sweeps his hair up in its current, swirls of silky brown flowing against crisp-clear azure. Branches of a tree, older than the first breath of her grandmother, reaching rebelliously out toward the sky — his pale fingers strike through the image, pull it back, and he is a boy again. "Right," he says. "Guess you just have one of those faces."

She's pretty sure she doesn't.

"You are Mischief," she begins, wrong-footed and dubious. "Aren't you?"

He unties his dog's leash from its post and regards her with wizened eyes. "Am I?"

Julia falters. In most tales told about him, Mischief comes off as a Mage of some kind — not a Druid or a Witch, but something. Nor can she feel any aura of power around this boy, not the spark of a 'were or an Alpha or a Mage, but maybe he's hiding it? So she looks harder and — it's like realizing the mountain outside of your bedroom window is, in fact, an active volcano.

"You _are,"_ she breathes.

"Could be, could be," he says. "On the other hand, I could be the abominable snowman," he twinkles his fingers and half-squints his eyes sarcastically.

Unsure what to do with that, Julia hastily disregards it, "I would be honoured if you would allow me to introduce you to my Alpha, of the Giliberto name."

His eyes curl into a somewhat troubling smile, "Actually, I have a better idea."

Which is how Julia's meeting with the Sacramento Pack's Emissary gets hijacked and turns into haggling over an ancient ceremonial ewer. She's still dazedly pitting and sneaking olives to Mischief's hulking dog under the table when Mildred, who has been obstinately refusing to let Julia come within ten miles of her Pack for the past three weeks, says, "Come to the Cardin Hotel tomorrow at 1800. I'll make the introductions."

"Cool," Mischief says, as if it'd been the easiest thing in the world.

Any doubt that Julia may have had left about him shrivels up and dies a fast and bewildered death.

* * *

Here is an Alpha who has the audacity to sit on a _throne_ — or, at least, a poor imitation of one. Stiles disapproves. Heavily.

And then this Alpha speaks words of vaunting derision over him, wondering what on earth a human adolescent could _possibly_ want with an ancient ceremonial ewer.

The Druid woman that tagged along, who should no longer remind him of the Darach that raped Derek and tried to kill his Dad (she doesn't even have the same fucking face) but does, fidgets beside him.

Stiles is struck by the sudden, intense suspicion that this is going to be annoying as hell.

"Does it matter?" he wonders, waving a hand around generally. "I have _money."_

"So do I," the Alpha says indulgently. "But this artefact is _priceless,_ and I just," he shakes his head with a doubtful scoff. "I fail to see why you would want it. What could you possibly do with it? You're _human,_ you look as if you're barely out of childhood," he chuckles, "you don't even have a _Pack."_

"I'm a Spark," Stiles reminds him, in case he forgot, which Stiles highly fucking doubts. Not that it matters since the Alpha's opinions seem to be purposefully selective.

Annoying, annoying.

"Maybe," the Alpha concedes, laughter still gurgling in his throat. 

The rest of his Pack, a large conglomerate, snicker along with him — all excepting the two, terrorized little twins who are being forced to kneel against the cold hard floor at their Alpha's feet. 

One twin shifts and the other groans as gluey threads of sinewy flesh stretch and snap apart like strings of bubblegum. Julia sucks in a harsh breath. A woman with Beta-blue eyes and fiery hair as red as theirs hisses ferally at them to be quiet. Bones shivering grotesquely underneath fickle skin, they try their very best to obey.

And Julia must be more learned than him in all the red-tape bureaucracy shit that the established Packs of this timeline are entrenched in, but he can see her righteous ire rising, can feel the potential of her power beginning to unspool like fresh spidersilk.

Stiles, gritting his teeth against his own protective fury, knocks his knuckles against hers and gives her a staying look.

_Not yet._

She grimaces but backs down without any resistance. Good.

"But you're still human," the Alpha says dismissively. "You're too young and you're too weak. Giving it to you would be a waste."

"You're not _giving_ it to me," Stiles points out dryly, always falling back on humour to stave off the worry, the rage. "I am trying to pay for it."

"I'm sorry," the Alpha says, not sounding very sorry at all. "It was very... _sweet_ of Mildred to introduce you to me," Mildred flinches at his tone, "but I'm not selling it to you."

Stiles considers this.

"What if I prove myself?"

The Alpha's interest is immediately piqued. The red-headed woman beside him narrows her eyes and tries to murmur something sharp-edged and wary into his ear. He waves her off. _"Prove_ yourself?"

Julia's looking at him like he's completely insane. It's a familiar look. (But not on her, never on her, and that's strangely comforting.)

"Yeah. You say your problem is that you don't think I'm worthy enough to buy the Thing, so what if I proved to you that I _was?_ Would you sell it to me then?"

The Alpha laughs, much more good-naturedly than before. It's an awful, nasally sound that fits his narrow, rat-like face perfectly. Curse and goddamn this vile, arrogant, annoying-ass cult leader rat Alpha who actually thinks his toothpick body is fucking intimidating. Stiles wants to kill him. Very, very slowly. Maybe chain him down to the floor and cut itsy-bitsy pieces out of him, barbecue them, and feed them to Roscoe all while he watches.

Wow. He's becoming more and more like Peter every day. Is it better or worse that he has enough self-awareness to admit it?

Whatever.

_Not yet._

"All right, then," the Alpha grins, oozing manipulative arrogance and something else entirely, something charred and greasy within his eyes that makes Stiles' skin crawl. "I'll give you a few tasks — assignments I was going to give my Betas sooner or later anyway. Routine menial jobs we have to do in order to manage our territory," he shrugs, "if you can complete these tasks and survive, I'll sell you the Thing."

"Cool," Stiles agrees smoothly.

Julia twitches.

And the Alpha's grin grows teeth.

* * *

"Gods above," Julia mutters, litanously.

They're in the adjoining guest rooms the Sacramento Pack had prepared for them, since they seem to have discounted her as her own entity and linked her entirely in with Mischief's issue.

"You got your introduction," Mischief says sedately from where he is literally _preparing enchanted mistletoe,_ "isn't that what you wanted?"

"I don't want _anything_ to do with that dreadful man," she says adamantly, bordering on shrill. "I don't want my Pack to have anything to do with him. I don't want _you_ to have anything to do with him!"

Mischief blinks at her, nonplussed.

"There are _children_ in _chains,"_ she snarls. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just cull this Pack right now."

"You're a Druid," Mischief says levelly. "Aren't you guys supposed to be less murdery? All about maintaining the balance, or whatever?"

Julia takes a deep breath in an attempt to calm down, counts to ten. How can he be so _blasé_ about this? How can something so perverse roll off of this boy's shoulders like water?

"I am a Druid," she concedes. "I am an Emissary. And you're right, culling this Pack is not my duty. It's my _Alpha's._ So give me one good reason not to call her."

Mischief's quicksand eyes seem to pull her in, weigh her very soul. "Why are you so worried about what I think?" he asks quietly, almost warily.

"Because they tell stories about you," she says, "and you're the hero in all of them. Because I'm curious," she huffs softly with a shrug. "Because if I let you out of my sight and you disappear on me my Alpha will be _pissed."_

He quirks an eyebrow, "She wants to meet me that badly, huh?"

"She's curious, too."

Mischief makes a vague noise in the back of his throat and lets his gaze drift back down to his mortar and pestle. Julia feels, unfathomably, as if she's just passed some sort of test.

"Well," he says, "I don't necessarily have a reason. But I do have a _plan."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stiles' POV! But it doesn't reveal very much, yet... I do believe some things will be revealed in the next chapter, though.
> 
> Also! I haven't been as on point in responding to comments (hello, anxiety, oops), but I see and love every one of them!!! I will be responding to all of them soon!!! I love, love, love you guys!!!


	8. The Tasks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are the best, and I hope this chapter can offer a minute or two of entertainment and escapism. I love you all, 💕💕💕
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Minor Character Death. Amorality (lite). Blink and you miss it mention of drugs. Child Abuse.

The tasks presented are as follows: a Coven, an outbreak of feral Gnomes, and someone stealing from the Sacramento Pack's reserves — likely a hacker.

The Coven is _easy_. Honestly, killing a dozen witches is relatively boring busywork for Stiles at this point. He makes sure that he _should_ kill them first, tracing back the murders and bank robberies and morally reprehensible rituals that they're responsible for. After he discovers the proof in the pudding, he dresses up as a pizza guy. He replaces his gas mask with a black mouth mask and tries his damnedest not to feel naked and vulnerable and — _I'm going to die, everyone's going to die, it hurts ithurtsithurtshurtshurts_ — without it.

The woman who opens the door has a '50s bob of waxy blonde hair and startlingly green eyes. She's wearing a loose, thin pink camisole and cheetah-print underwear. She giggles and says something demure about him being cute, he blinks blandly and offers her her goddamn food. She pays him.

A day later, twelve women are found dead in various states of vegetation and rotting in their high-rise apartment.

Mistletoe - with a dash of sage blessed by the equivalent of a high priest - is awesome.

The Gnomes are harder. It's like playing some crazy, masochistic, mildly disturbing version of whack-a-mole. They're evil, psychopathic, hive-minded little things that want nothing more than to feed on the flesh of newborns. They will stoop to _every_ Saw-level prank you could possibly think of just for shits and giggles, and it only gets worse when you intentionally piss them off.

They breed like _rabies_.

It takes him two. Fucking. _Months._

It sucks something awful, but he fucking _does it._

Then there's the hacker. Despite Stiles' considerable google-fu and his possessing a minor knowledge of programming and code thanks to Danny, the time period for his particular brand of knowledge doesn't necessarily exist yet, and his magic alone just won't cut it for finding this guy. Stiles decides, after about an hour of hitting his head against a wall, to recruit help.

* * *

Visiting the Argents isn't Peter's _favourite_ chore, but it is a necessity. One that, this time, bears more fruit than he'd been expecting.

He hears it as he's walking through one of the many corridors of their house after letting himself in† — an unfamiliar voice and heartbeat. The heartbeat is soft, sings the feathery melody of wings flexing against the sky, leaves breaking away from their branches at the beginning of autumn, children laughing as they run barefoot through shallow rivers. The voice is rich furnace-fire smoke and enticing in an earthy, demandingly endearing sort of way.

"—need this to be traced, and I _know_ you have the connections to do it."

Peter eavesdrops unreservedly and without shame.

"Okay," he hears Chris say, low and annoyed. "And why should I help you?"

"Look, man, I'm not gonna blackmail you again, it'll hurt more than it'll help to have your whole Clan shipped off to prison after all the work we've done. But I just spent the last two months playing hide-and-go-seek with a bunch of fucking feral-ass baby-munching Gnomes who wanted nothing more than to flay me alive for sport, all for an Alpha I am most _definitely_ planning on killing, but not before I get paid for services rendered and _this_ is the very last service rendered.

"I am not in a good mood, _Argent_ , and whatever patience I do have left is rapidly dwindling. So if you don't mind, I could really use your help."

Peter creeps through the door and relaxes silently against the wall, presence going unnoticed by his bickering company.

The stranger has their back to him, but Peter can see soft brown hair spilling in waves over their unzipped red hoodie. They're muscular in the way dancers are, all agile grace instead of powerfully packed bulk, with an aura like _war_ hanging thick and heavy around them. They look perplexingly young for the conversation they're having.

Peter's mouth goes dry. He wonders if this is who he thinks it is.

Chris makes a face at the stranger, then heaves an aggrieved, resigned sigh. _"Fine,"_ he concedes, taking up the external hard-drive that had been set on the desk between them, "I'm assuming this Alpha you're planning to kill is...?"

"Dude, seriously? _Yes_ , the kill will be Code-compliant. He's an abusive narcissistic dickhead, and he is, by far, the most _annoying guy_ on the face of the fucking planet. Anyway, _that's_ none of your business. Do the thing. And," he makes a vague gesture, black-lacquered fingernails chewed to the quick, "y'know, _thanks."_

"Sure," Chris says grudgingly. Then he smiles slick, like oil, "You'll owe me."

"Ugh. Yes. Bastard."

Chris grabs his jacket, straps in his guns, and moves to leave. His eyes _finally_ managing to light on Peter as he heads for the door. "You," he growls, not unlike the wolves that he is so keen on hunting (well, perhaps not so keen anymore). "Can't you ever _knock?_ Ring the bell like a goddamn normal person?"

The grin that skulks across Peter's face is all dark amusement and _normalcy is **not** for me._ "Your lock," he says, "is disgustingly easy to pick. Perhaps you should look into that."

The stranger goes unnaturally still at the sound of his voice. Then, ever so slowly, he turns, wide-eyed, to _stare_. The high-tech gas mask is telling, and the _rest_ — breathtaking might be an understatement.

His eyes especially: how they are all heat haze rising up from scorched sand dunes; how his gaze lingers, becomes vulnerable and soft, seeps affection and yearning and so much _heartbreak_ that Peter's eyes, inexplicably, burn in return. There is a familiarity there, and a chased, cornered sort of thing dashing urgently beneath it all like a fawn, stricken and drenched in its' warm blood, unwilling to become a predator's meal.

His scent - when Peter takes in the shaky breath his restless lungs require after having, apparently, been deprived - is old, abandoned libraries with sunlight tilting through from high, narrow windows to dance sleepily with the dust-motes and the fragile, parchment kissed air. It's _beautiful_. And then it is diluted with rain, the scent of unshed tears and agonized grief flowing through it in a way that Peter immediately, vehemently despises.

 _"Peter,"_ Mischief breathes, and Peter's heart trembles painfully at the sound of his name spoken cracked and brittle and _meaningful_ in a way he can't possibly understand.

"Hello," he answers softly, at a complete loss. He has no earthly idea what this is, but it's _something_. He's nearly paralyzed by the force of it.

Mischief's eyes crinkle as he chokes on a startled laugh that sounds three fourths a sob. "Hello," comes the airy, misted-over response. Then, a little steadier, a little more _fond_ , "Hello."

"Mischief." It's a statement more than it is a question, but Peter still wants to know, has to be sure that he's _right_.

"Yes," Mischief agrees.

"Nice to finally meet you."

Mischief's eyes curl with some sharp-edged, haemorrhaging joy that makes Peter think he must be smiling _wide_ underneath that mask. "I'll see you again," he promises as his whole body goes translucent, fading from sight, _"soon."_

In the aftermath, there is hush and sillage. A stranger - or, mostly a stranger - and Peter finds himself already missing them.

"Huh," Chris intones, and Peter very nearly startles. He'd forgotten he was there, so consumed by Mischief's presence he was.

"Care to share with the class, Christopher?"

Chris snorts, but admits, "I don't know. I don't think I've ever seen him act like that before."

"Like _what?"_ Peter asks, a little sharper than he'd meant to. Chris gives him a mild look and Peter subsides, unwilling to be teased for something that feels so... _personal._

"Human," Chris decides after a moment of deliberation, as if that explains anything. Peter narrows his eyes because, under the circumstances, that metaphor leaves a lot to be desired. Chris only sighs and makes a vague 'follow me' gesture as he strides purposefully outside, locking the door behind him. "What do you want, Peter?"

"The treaty states that we are to consult one another before... _un-knitting_ civilians."

Chris pinches the bridge of his nose despairingly for a moment. "You know, with the type of town Beacon Hill _is_ , it's almost surprising that there's anyone living here who still doesn't know — especially since you've got all the big-shots in your pocket."

"Selective blindness," Peter replies, blasé, shrugging. "They don't want to see, so they don't let themselves see. It keeps them safe, in a manner of speaking. Besides, not everyone we've allied our family to _knows,_ per se."

"But _most_ do."

Peter concedes the point. 

They pass by various suburbanite residences as they head further into town, all the picturesque white-picket-fenced american dreams that house the people he and his Pack keep safe daily, that house the people who, unknowingly, dwell in a wolf Pack's den. His fingertips glance the spirals of his gifted pendant and he silently wonders if Mischief is among them somewhere, if he is one of the few who calls Beacon Hills home.

"So," Chris says into his thoughts, "who is it you want to let into the club?"

"A Deputy, Noah Stilinski."

Chris makes a lightly approving noise as he pushes them onward through the serpentine streets and alleyways. They're near businesses and vendors now, closing in on wherever their final destination must be. The bustle of busier society washes over him, the conflicting aromas irritating but not overpowering.

"I've heard some things," Chris says. "He was the guy who kept Ennis from tearing the hospital to shreds during that whole fiasco last year. The town likes him pretty well, and his wife just died. He's a shoo-in for sheriff in this election, isn't he? Smart. It'd be a good idea to tell him. How does Talia feel about this?"

"She gave it her seal of approval this morning."

"Well, I'm giving it mine. Like I said, it's a good idea." They come to a stop at a hole in the wall Diner, all uneven bricks and tiny windows, the dense perfume of marijuana and cleaning products mingling with frying oil and spices. Peter can hear the loud, humming whir of electronics, the clacking of keyboards, and the chittering buzz of no less than a dozen computers. Chris pauses just short of the door, grimacing, "I highly doubt my Matriarch will be as happy about it, though."

"Yes, well. The treaty demanded _dialogue_ , it never said anything about _agreeable_ dialogue. Victoria can—"

 _"Don't_ finish that sentence," Chris says, holding up a hand to stay him, though he's biting back a smile and there's exasperated humour curling grudgingly in his eyes. He sighs, "Didn't it also say something about not pushing your boundaries?"

Peter hums lightly, paces backwards a few steps, and says, "I'm not pushing _anything_ , Christopher. Enjoy your dalliance with your little friends."

"Uh-huh," Chris huffs, opening the curious Diner's door as Peter turns on his heel and quits the scene. He's pretty sure the elementary school is somewhere nearby, maybe he'll be able to catch a ride back home with Cora and Gabriel.

* * *

Stiles gives himself a day. He gives himself a day, after Peter, to feel devastated and lonely and _aching,_ to be crippled by flashbacks and the unrelenting panic that is forever plaguing him.

And then he compartmentalizes. He shoves all his fucked up into a box, locks it, and casts it into a dark corner of his mind to be dealt with later — he has _work_ to do.

Stiles brings the terrible excuse of an Alpha a newspaper article, a sack of gnome-dust, and a computer with its owner's hands still attached.

Julia, mingling with the gathering crowd, gives him a slight nod. The fire in her eyes reminds him of who she was in the before-after, who she isn't now, who she will hopefully never be.

The twins remain shackled at the man's feet, all misery, and the woman with hair like a forest fire is nowhere to be seen. The rat Alpha somehow manages to be even more annoying than he was previously, but he accepts the proof, accepts the originally required payment, and hands over the sacred ewer. Stiles utilizes his weak, delicate humanity as an excuse to ask for room and board for another night.

The Alpha allows it, and this time, it is Stiles' grin that grows teeth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> † : The societal concept of privacy doesn't concern werewolves, and has never concerned Peter in particular. Besides, he's already caught Victoria and Chris in one delightfully compromising position (which had been _hilarious._ To him, anyway. Lost on them, the poor, pitiful souls, so prone to embarrassment as they are), how could he pass up the chance to catch them in another? [Go Back]
> 
> I swear we'll be taking care of the rat alpha soon, but... meet-cute? I hope you liked it!!! _Super soulhugs & lotsa love._


	9. The Twins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As an apology for currently being unable to reply to comments, I present to you the early-bird bundle special! All the love and soulhugs, lovelies, be well, remember to wash your hands, all the things, xoxoxo
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Canon-Typical Violence. Light Body Horror? Mention of Non-Consensual Drugging of Bad Guys.

### 8.5: Julia's Stay

For the past two and a half months, Julia has fallen into a routine:

During the day, Julia will pretend nice as she gathers information and sews the seeds of rebellion, gifting her Mischief-forged bracelets to a carefully-selected few. In the afternoon, Julia calls Kali to keep her up to date, soothe her impatience, and find comfort in her bluntness and matching curiosity as they trade theories and thoughts. At night, she dutifully continues weaving her spell.

Sometimes, Roscoe will visit her, with his massive frame and his wrinkly, drooping face and his gruff engine noises. He comes alone more often than with his keeper. To watch her, Julia thinks. Or to benefit from her willingness to share olives.

Mischief visits her, too.

He'll meet her every day or once or twice a week, in the golden birth of dawn, under the heavy blanket of night, in the middle of the day. He'll knock a melody on the door connecting their rooms and then walk out into the hallway and come in without further notice. (The door connecting their rooms is never unlocked and is so warded that Julia can feel it, a rabid bull, all impale-curved horns and flank-whipping tale, eager for the chance to taste red.) He'll hand her a greasy paper bag full of indistinguishable take out and a soft drink or a coffee, wave off whatever minor to concerning injuries he's obtained since she last saw him, and ask surprising questions that somehow lead to a systematic dissection of the entire Sacramento Pack.

It's been surreal, being pulled into his whirlwind, getting a look behind the curtain. All the stories dilute it down to the success, to the violence and the clash and the climax. But for the past two and a half months Julia's watched Mischief work with a near-manic fervour.

Slowly, slowly, he arranges the pieces. Always, _not yet, not yet._

"We're waiting on the sacred ewer, aren't we?" she'd asked once, because no amount of clever verbal manoeuvring could've hidden that. "Why?"

And he'd looked at her in that way he sometimes does, with a vast abyss of terror that is there and gone so quickly she almost could've imagined it, replaced by a terrible blankness that always leaves her feeling vaguely nauseous and sad.

He had avoided her for a week and Roscoe had only glared at her when he came by, refusing any treats she'd had to offer.

When he had shown up again, he'd been bloody and limping and probably in need of urgent medical care. Julia is not used to having human friends, she is not used to people getting hurt and _staying_ hurt, but he'd waved her off as he always did.

"I'm fine," he'd said, and passed out on the cheap hotel sofa. Roscoe had whined like a rusty metal door. 

Julia had done her best to administer first aid and had wondered why he'd come to her in such a vulnerable state when it was obvious how much he didn't trust her. Then she'd seen the scars, and the sickening juxtaposition between them and his boyish sleeping face, and she'd had to sit back and swallow thickly several times.

She had resolved never to ask about the ewer again.

Three hours later Mischief had woken up with a bitten off scream and had blinked down at himself with great confusion and surprise, "You patched me up?"

"Yes."

"Why?" He'd seemed so genuinely perplexed by her action that Julia had wanted to laugh or cry hysterically.

"Because I don't actually _want_ you to bleed out right in front of me?" she'd said, with choked up incredulity.

"Oh," he'd said, like he honestly never would've thought of that, like it's the _last_ thing he would've thought of. "Okay. Um, thanks, I guess?"

And Julia had sniffed, rubbed her eyes, and said, "Of course."

Two days later, another bag of take out and cup of sketchy coffee, and he'd told her, "There are some things that lose their power if they're not given freely. And there's something I need to do, something really fucking important. I—. That's all I can tell you, okay?"

"Okay," she'd said lightly, afraid she'd scare him off again.

His eyes had crinkled with what she'd hoped was a smile. Hard to tell, sometimes, with that gas mask. She wondered if he ever took it off. She wondered if he ate. She wondered if he had people to go home to when this was done.

* * *

### 9: The Twins

Stiles has to admit, although it's galling to do so, that owning a giant hotel chain and keeping one of the hotels to yourself for the total sum of your Pack - throne-room attic notwithstanding - is pretty clever.

Not so clever: old machines for locks, easily cloned master-key cards, downtrodden Betas acting as maidservants who are readily taken in by the smallest kindnesses.

And, as stealth is a current priority, teleporting is out of the question. Mildred may not be as powerful as Stiles (or Julia, for that matter), but pretty much anyone with the Gift would be able to sense the magic required for teleportation — and he has no doubt that the _second_ anything shifty happens alarm bells will start ringing.

So, a cloned master-key card, charm bracelets charmed to hide scent and sound, a ring forged to conceal magical residue, a splash of good luck on the way and he's able to creep completely unnoticed into the rat Alpha's rooms.

The twins are there, chained up to his bed-post like snivelling dogs. They grunt and sob quietly, all agony as their bones shift and their organs twist and their skin _foams_. These children are so inconstant. It _hurts_ to see them like this.

Stiles tamps down on a few particularly violent urges _(not yet)_ and sidles along the wall through the darkness — careful, careful.

When the twins notice him, realize that he isn't just a part of the shadows, their eyes go terribly wide, and their breathing hitches, and their mouths open all in perfect synch.

Stiles quickly holds a finger to his lips (well, his gas mask, but the point remains): _quiet_. 

Their mouths close. One of them swallows. The other nods, suddenly fiercely determined, gritting his teeth when their bodies begin to mould together again. 

Stiles crouches down and crawls over to them, mindful of the rat Alpha sleeping bare centimetres away.

A hand-crafted lockpick sees them out of their chains, two amulets that he'd made especially for the occasion see their bones, organs, and skin _seperate_ , solid, individual. 

They gasp, and he can tell they're about to start asking questions — or _worse_ , thanking him, tears of tormented relief welling up in their eyes. Stiles puts his hands over their mouths and shakes his head intently, jerking his chin toward their still slumbering Alpha. His hands are soaked by the time they've nodded their understanding and he feels safe enough to pull them away.

 _Time to go,_ he thinks, and urges them toward the door.

The three of them are in the claustrophobic area that's all stacked stairways, white walls, steel doors, and floor numbers when the twins can no longer keep their silence. Stiles is glad, at least, that they waited this long. No one will hear them here, so long as they keep their words hushed and secretive. Which, inspired by long-instilled fear, they do. Their thanks, he waves away. Their questions, he promises to answer once they're actually safe. Then:

"Wait! Mister," they begin shiftily. 

"Mommy's still..." 

"We can't leave her." 

"He'll _kill_ her."

Stiles immediately stops and turns toward them, kneeling down on the steps so that they can peer at his face and he can stop looming like some fucking schoolmarm. He keeps his voice gentle, because their cheeks are ruddy and wet and they're only _kids_. They didn't deserve this, didn't deserve any of it.

"I know," he says. "And as soon as you two are out of here safe and sound, I'm going to go get her, okay? But I need to take care of you guys first."

He allows them the moment they need to digest this. 

"Mommy'll understand," one of them eventually murmurs, nudging his fretful twin's shoulder comfortingly, nevermind what close proximity had been doing to them mere minutes ago. "You know what she's always saying? That we have to take care of _each other_ before anyone else — even her."

"Yeah," the other says, slowly squaring his shoulders. Brave.

God, Stiles thinks, this explains so fucking much.

"Let's get a move on, then," Stiles crinkles his eyes at them with a soft, worried smile. "I don't know how much time we have." 

Not exactly true.

Besides the security in this place being god-awful — rat Alpha's dinner was dosed with a pretty heavy-duty sedative, and they have about an hour before the usual patrol would check in to discover their disappearances. They also have about an hour before Julia's curse is ready.

Hushed and hurried, it takes the group about nine minutes to reach the first floor, sneak through the lobby, and steal right out the front doors. It takes another five to get far enough away that Stiles feels comfortable teleporting.

He _means_ to land at the Giliberto compound — Julia's communication with the other Alphas, despite currently acting as defacto Emissary for the whole region, is limited. Kali is the only one apprised of their issue, and she's already given the go-ahead for this.

He would've refused, maybe.

Except Julia has started looking like Julia, _just_ Julia, to him. Maybe a friend-shaped Julia (which is enormously strange and a teensy bit suspicious). So when she had extended the offer of sanctuary, earnest and true, he'd held his breath and accepted.

If this goes south, he'd thought then, she will suffer.

All of which becomes moot — because the Giliberto compound is _not_ where they end up.

* * *

It is 2:17 AM when a _crackling_ rouses and worries all within the Hale house.

Peter, who'd been awake already, rushes out of his study in search of the noise. Talia in her nightgown joining him on the way. 

The startled pups are gathered in their doorways, wide-eyed and searching, until their parents or minders start marching them into the most easily defensible rooms on the third floor. Laura, however, ducks away from this treatment to follow her mother and Uncle along with Carrie, Róisín, and Helena-Mae. At an exasperated okay from Talia, the others let her.

The crackling is loudest in the sitting room on the first floor, and getting louder all the time. It steadily evolves into something so screaming thunderous that it consumes all thought and sense until their small pack is covering their ears and snarling.

But, as quickly as it came, it stops with an abrupt _pop_ , leaving behind only a whistling sizzle and three whole new people in their sitting room.

Carrie growls open-mouthed, an aggravated warning and a call to arms. She and the rest of the curadh gan chloí falling into mildly defensive postures that could easily snap into offence at a word from their Alpha, or at the slightest hint of threat from the intruders.

Peter knocks his knuckles to Talia's wrist and she clicks her tongue thrice without looking away from their guests. 

Carrie stops growling, and the three women fall into calmer stances, waiting.

"Mischief," Peter says carefully.

The two little red-headed boys accompanying Mischief are hanging onto him as if their lives depend on it and taking in their surroundings with a perfect mixture of awe and naked fear.

"Um," Mischief says with a nervous wave. "Hi?"

"May I inquire as to why you're honouring us with this visit?"

Mischief's eyes dart over Carrie, Róisín, and Helena-Mae, the more obvious threats in the room, before landing and steadying on Peter. He takes a deep breath, seemingly grounded by Peter's presence, and says, "I come to beg temporary sanctuary for Ethan and Aiden Steiner."

"And you ask us this after breaking into our Pack's Den without our consent?" Carrie's husky voice is riddled with gravelly censure.

Mischief narrows his eyes at her, "I didn't break into—. All right, look. They're eight, all I'm asking is that you maybe keep them alive for a few hours while I go save their mother from whatever the fuck their abusive goddamn rat Alpha has done to her. I'm sorry I didn't warn you I was coming - I kind of didn't know I was doing it until I _did_ it - but I'm probably running out of time here so would you please just let me do all the red-tape bullshit _later?"_

Before anyone can respond, Talia says, "Peter. Introduce us."

Everyone stills. Silence rings.

Etiquette dictates that the Alpha and the Alpha's heir do not speak to outsiders unless they have been introduced by a trustworthy party. Some Packs play fast and loose with these rules, these unspoken laws of traditional civility. 

The Hale Pack does not.

Peter is Talia's Left Hand, his introduction, in particular, holds a certain weight. Whatever he says here will dictate her future interactions with Mischief, and the Pack will follow her lead in this as in all things.

Peter thinks of every rumour and story they have on this boy. He thinks of the treaty. He thinks of Malia. He thinks of the one, small interaction he'd had with him at the Argents'. He thinks of the overwhelming scent of an archaic haven of sunlight and bookshelves pitted against fog and rain. He thinks of how his wolf has gone heavy-lidded despite all its' attention focusing so keenly on Mischief's nearness.

Peter says, "Mischief, this is my Alpha, Talia Hale. Alpha," he looks into her eyes and deliberately softens his tone, "I would very much like you to meet Mischief."

If they hadn't been so close, he would've missed her slight twitch at his directness and uncharacteristic warmth. Any movement of surprise beyond that is expertly hidden behind her immediate ascent into kind intention.

"I am very happy to make your acquaintance, Mischief."

Mischief stares at Peter for a moment, shudders, blinks, breathes. "So am I. Happy. Ecstatic. Over the fucking moon."

Also confused by this development, Peter thinks, pleased that Mischief at least seems to know what it means.

The curadh gan chloí's bodies melt into passivity. Laura, who had heretofore been hidden and held back by their bulk, slinks out from behind them and over to her mother's side.

"Your request is granted," Talia says. "They may stay with us while you retrieve their mother, it'll be no problem at all."

 _"Thank you,"_ Mischief says fervently. "Thank you so fucking much." And then he drags the twins in front of him and crouches down to address them: "I trust the Hales, okay? I swear on my life they will keep you safe — and I will be _right back."_

The twins nod tearfully, one of each of their pudgy little hands fisted around the pendants around their necks as they walk determinedly over to Talia to fist the other into her skirts. Mischief inhales deep, steadying, and looks meaningfully into Talia's eyes as he says: "I trust you."

Talia's irises bleed a bright, vivid crimson, before widening as if she hadn't _meant_ for them to and was surprised that they had. Mischief's eyes curl with a smile. And then, without nearly as much fanfare, he's gone.

"Dude," Laura says. 

Talia looks in mild astonishment at the children she's accepted into her care even as Róisín and Helena-Mae begin herding them out of the room. Carrie lingers, casting wary looks from the spot Mischief had been in to her sisters-in-arms' shadows until Talia dismisses her, telling her to take Laura and to give their packmates the all-clear. Laura tries to refuse, too intrigued and excited about this whole affair by far. Carrie threatens to drag the little princess by her hair. Laura subsides, sulkily. Talia takes another moment or two to catch her breath and compose herself.

"Peter," she says at last, "make some tea. And call Alan. You know what? Call Chris, too, while you're at it."

"You're not worried, are you?" he asks of her.

She snorts and somehow manages to make it sound dignified. "No. After everything he's done, I'd be hard-pressed to call him a threat; and there's no way those boys are anything but scared little kids."

He hums his agreement and she gives him a sly once over.

"You like him, don't you?"

Peter regards her calmly and doesn't allow himself to answer that shallowly. "Perhaps."

She smirks, elbows him, "You like all the trouble he's causing."

_"Perhaps."_

She laughs at him and sweeps away to go check on her charges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part Two of the bundle in like ten minutes because my internet/AO3 is weird.


	10. Hadassah Steiner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Trigger Warnings :** Panic Attack. Amorality. Minor Character Death, Violence, Gore, Body Horror (aka: in this one, karma says hi, hello to a bunch of bad guys). Light Confinement. Implied/Referenced Domestic Abuse & Rape.

Julia is meditating in her array, building the spell until it is swollen and ripe.

Murmuring and heavy breathing pull her out of her concentration. She blinks slowly back to reality and sees Mischief pacing, head bowed toward his hands, fingers ticking.

"Mischief?" she calls softly, "Is everything okay?"

"Fine," he says, voice weaker than a newborn kitten. He clenches his hands, unclenches them, runs trembling fingers through his hair. "Small change of plans."

"What do you mean?" Julia asks, alarmed. "Did they catch you? Are the twins safe?"

"They're safe — they're with the-the Hales," he swallows, his breath shakes and shallows.

"Is that," Julia hesitates. Mischief, for the first time, seems truly distressed. It's freaking her out. "Is that a bad thing?"

"No," Mischief laughs, chokes on it, and sits down on the floor, hard. "I can't," he says, hands clasped to his gas mask, eyes squeezed shut, hyperventilating. "I can't lose—"

 _"Mischief."_ Julia's heart pounds. She can't leave the circle yet, and she has no idea what to do, she doesn't know what's happening. "Come on, hey." What is it he's always saying? "We have work to do, right? The twins are safe, the spell's almost done, and we've still got ten minutes left. We haven't lost anything. Not yet. But I need you to pull yourself together, Mischief, okay, because I can't do this without you."

She could _try_ to do it without him, maybe, but this plan has always been his. And she doesn't _want_ to do it without him.

It takes five minutes of Mischief struggling agonizingly to breathe and Julia trying to coax him out of whatever this is. She's not even sure he can hear her, not even sure he can _see_ her, but what else can she do? His hands either clutch at his mask or tangle in his hair or hover in front of his feverish eyes as he rocks back and forth, unreachable. Then, finally: "Julia?"

"I'm here," she says, all relief and heartache. "I'm here."

"Could you just— breathe with me, I- I can't, on my own, I need—"

"Okay," she says, immeasurably grateful for the direction. She coaches him through a handful of deep breaths until he's, thank all the Gods, on steadier ground.

"Tell me the date?"

Strange request, but she does.

"Okay. Okay. I'm-I'm okay. Sorry about—" he flaps a hand, a little jittery, but no longer trembling. "I have panic attacks. Sometimes."

Something, she decides, that she will have to look up later. Julia smiles as comfortingly as she can, "Well, we still have a few more minutes. Do you want me to just wing it so you can rest? Because I can do that." This comes out a little high-pitched with nerves and Mischief raises an eyebrow at her. "What? I totally could."

"You could kill everybody here," he says agreeably. "But could you kill the right people at the right time? And make sure our appointed heir inherits what's rightfully hers? And—"

"I could _try,"_ she says. Mischief's eyes crinkle laughter at her. "And probably fail," she concedes. "But I could still _try."_

Mischief chuckles, shaking his head. "No, no, I'm okay. Is the spell almost ready?"

"A few more seconds."

"Alright," he says, "we've got work to do."

* * *

When Tony and Nathan's patrol reaches Mischief's door, a dog the size of a small horse is there to greet them. 

His bark screeches through the hallway like the skidding tires of a wildly swerving car. He leaps, powerful jaws wide to catch Tony's throat between his bone-crunching teeth. But his teeth wrap around Tony's up-swinging arm instead, and Tony bellows out his pained rage.

Nathan gouges his sharp claws down sleek-furred ribs, snarling. The dog releases his hold on Tony with a mild whimper and dances away from them.

The wound does not heal the way they expect, but sinewy vines thick with thorns begin to grow. A howl erupts from the depths of Tony's chest, faint with horror.

Unseen, a steel baseball bat flashes through the air, crashing into Tony's face and shattering his nasal bone. Mischief falls back with his beast as Tony clutches his nose, moaning wretchedly. A bright red fountain of blood flows over twisting, creaking branches as they gnarl through the centre of Tony's features. Tony screams, more frantic shock than pain, and crumples.

Nathan and Mischief regard one another. The dog is already gone.

On Nathan's wrist is a thin chain, the Lady Druid had given it to him after a conversation. He does not know this, but that chain brands him a rebel, whether he means to be or not. For that chain, Mischief doesn't strike to avenge Roscoe.

He turns heel and runs toward his purpose.

Nathan, of course, follows him.

* * *

Hadassah Steiner prowls around the lock-up room. 

Four paces in any direction brings you to a wall. The crown and base moulding of said walls are comprised of mountain ash and desert clay, the door is treated rowan wood.

For a 'were, there is no way out.

She lays herself down on the bare wooden floor with a teeth-gritting sigh, lets her eyes fall shut. It is so dark in this room. She has no idea how long it will be until her Gods forsaken, oath-breaking Alpha lets her _out._

Soon, she prays.

Her Alpha had been a horrid fool to trust that youngling. 

She'd seen in that youngling such _power,_ the old and wild kind that demands consideration and respect. She'd seen in his brazen brassy eyes wrath, enough of it to raze their entire Pack to the ground. For all her hatred of her Mate, she loves her Pack, and she would not see them crumble under the weight of his mistakes. Mistakes she knows he will make, too arrogant for his own good, and too human. A wolf that doesn't use all their senses dies — he saw nothing, scented nothing, heard nothing, and it's going to get them all killed.

If it were her Mate alone she wouldn't have said anything.

But it was not, and so she defied him — and so she is here.

She'd been fourteen and half-feral when she'd met her Mate. So desperate for an Alpha was she, that she couldn't refuse him. Damn him for that. Damn him for making her _love_ him first. Damn him for what he does to her Pack, for what he does to her babies, for what he does to _her._

Gods damn him to the lowest, coldest depths of hell.

She prays for her babies, that maybe - when they are older and smarter - they will be able to leave this place and find an Alpha they can _fight beside,_ one who will lead them with _kindness._

Maybe, when that day comes, they will find reason to hate her. She is the one who brought them into this world, she is the one who keeps them here out of cowardice, the inability to face being Omega again, she is the one despicably incapable of saving them. So let them hate her, let them leave her, she will accept it gladly. She would die for them gladly. She _lives_ for them gladly.

And life, of course, is pain.

So she endures for them gladly.

And she hopes it will be enough.

It is so _dark,_ in this room. All shadow and strain.

Her hands are slick with blood, the aching tremor in them from when she'd beaten and wailed on the door bone-deep. The fractures and breaks have all realigned and healed, but her skin is taking longer to knit itself together.

She lets out a long, shuddering breath and allows herself her weeping.

She knows from experience that no one will hear her, here. And even if they did, would it matter? She has been violated in front of her packmates, her children have been chained, for all the sorrow and indignation and shared tyrannized hatred it has cultivated in her Mate's people — if she'd had any dignity left it would've long deserted her by now.

She isn't weeping for shame or desolation, but for frustration, for exhaustion.

These have been many hard, long years, and there is no end in sight.

She is laying there, in her nudity, in her blood, sweat, and tears when the alarm sounds. She's only ever heard it trill its' harsh warning bell twice: once when it was being installed, and once for a drill. 

Hadassah knows, this time, it isn't a drill.

She lurches up into a defensive crouch, despite knowing it will do her no good, trapped as she is. But her babies are out there. She doesn't have any idea what's going on, only that the alarm is rattling in her head, is shaking her heart like an old dealer's dice, and her babies are _out there._

But what can she do? How is she to help them when she is stuck in this broom closet's excuse for a cell?

A howl erupts from somewhere so deep within her belly it could be her womb. Her claws splinter the floor beneath her. Her entirety is a living expression of _need_ — to get to them, to protect them, to have them near her breast and as safe as it is possible for them to be again.

And then the door _opens_.

The youngling that she'd known would be trouble the moment she set eyes on him stands there, a steel bat muddied with viscera in one hand and a gown that looks much too expensive for this place in the other.

"Hey, mama," he says, voice husky with physical exertion and, likely, pain.

She can hear, now, her packmates howling, screaming, underneath the alarm's wail. Her chest swells with their lust for war, their insatiable rage.

The part of her desperate for her children wants her to rip her way through him. But he is so close that she can feel that power in him that'd stirred her to action days ago. She doesn't think him invulnerable, no, but whatever he is she cannot conquer. It would be like beating her fists against the high rocky cliffs; only an ocean could make that yield, and even the ocean must take its' time.

He tosses her the gown in perfect time with the door ripping itself off of its' hinges and disintegrating, transmuted into a line of mountain ash that blocks off their section of the hall, easy as breathing.

"Get dressed, please," he tells her as four wolves are stopped short by this boundary. They are panting for his destruction, frothing at the mouth rabid. He doesn't pay them an ounce of mind. "I'm giving you a promotion."

"My babies," she cries, mindlessly.

"Safe. Listen to my heartbeat, Mrs. Steiner — Ethan and Aiden are _safe."_

He is telling the truth.

And their scent is on him, flowers blooming wild and plucked right from the field to make sour-sweet wine, not wilted or eaten through by dust and mould and rain, but soothed: rich and plump and liquid. That is not something that can be faked, not even by one such as he is.

Her babies are safe. They're _safe._

"And I'm going to take you to them," he says. "But first: I think a regime change is in order, don't you?"

The four that had been pacing the boundary, with their dark faces and their violent mouths and their claws clicking, are overtaken by a slow dawning. Together, they go quiet and still. They are breathless in wait. They are Georgio and Martín and Nathan and Pasha. They are her packmates and her brothers and they have always, always thought of her as nothing less than their Queen. Their hope.

And now their hope is blossoming.

"Yes," she says, savagely.

And now their hope has born fruit.

They smile like little boys being left home alone to jump on the bed and eat their weight in bread and cheese and honey. They smile like _trouble._

She cannot see the youngling's mouth for his mask, but she can tell by his eyes that he's smiling exactly the same.

If he is a Devil she's just made a deal with, she cannot bring herself to care.

She cannot bring herself to care because, three hours later, that mongrel's rent flesh is sticky meat beneath her claws, and he is choking on his own life-blood, and her wolven eyes are become the colour of his leaking death. She cannot bring herself to care because her Pack settles around her, their bonds swirling powerful in her veins, and she is resplendent with victory, and she is high on the glut of the Alpha Spark, and she is _free._

And so will they be, her Pack, her babies.

She will change this place. She will make it a home they can be proud of. She will make herself someone they won't need to hate in order to survive.

If he is a Devil, thank him anyway, and to Hell with all the Gods.

* * *

Meanwhile, Julia and Roscoe are cutting a swathe through the hotel.

Their job had been to keep the way as clear as possible for Mischief and - whenever he gets her - their chosen heir. Upon Roscoe's back is a large barrel of mountain ash, a small crack in its wood allowing the smokey grain to trickle in a slow line that Julia uses to barricade doors and cage anyone they pass.

A curly-haired wolf screams his fury and charges at them, his claws meant to gouge across her collar-bone. But she strikes him first: the steel-edged spear Mischief had given her pierces through his soft belly before he can reach her. When she yanks her weapon back his entrails splatter crimson onto the floor, followed quickly by the trunk of a small tree punching vigorously outward.

The werewolves' healing factors being put to a _much_ different use.

What comes from the earth must always return to it. May he rest under Dirgen's soil, this moonborn child.

They're closing in on Mildred when it happens. Their second job had been to make sure the Sacramento Pack's Emissary wouldn't pose a threat, but Mildred seems much more invested in saving her own skin than even _trying_ to rescue her Pack. 

"You don't deserve them," Julia calls angrily through the mass of wolves Mildred has compelled to shield her. "You don't deserve to be their Emissary, and you are a _disgusting_ excuse for a Druid!"

Mildred begins shouting something frazzled back at her—

And it _rings_ like a bell through them: Mischief's magic activating. Julia's curse leaves as if swept away by a fate-turned breeze. All of the wolven eyes in the room flash.

Their chosen heir has come into her own.

("These," Mischief had told her, weeks ago, handing over dozens of delicate gold-chain bracelets, "are kind of like a quick-dry adhesive. Super-sticky packbonds super fast for our newbie ruler. Hello, extremely helpful power-boost.")

The kind of thing that can turn the tide of battle.

The kind of thing that can easily break the compulsion Mildred had spun.

Mildred knows it, too. She freezes as the bracelet-bearers turn on her, terror brightening her widened eyes. She tries to throw mountain ash, but Julia calls the glittering black sand to herself. Defenceless, claws rip into Mildred's shoulders and her throat. One goes so far as to snap her elbow between their fangs.

She dies screaming.

Julia grins, grim and giddy with the thrill of vindicated rage, of fresh warfare.

Roscoe barks, engine roaring to speed, beside her and she shares her tooth-sharp smile with him as she begins lifting her arms — lifting the spear — recalling every sinuous thread of mountain ash they'd laid.

 _Now,_ she thinks.

 _Now._ And the released wolves turn on each other: those who would never bend the knee to their new Queen against the dead-loyal Julia had rooted out and the new-loyal who had at once yielded.

Barely a fifth of them had fallen victim to Julia's temporary affliction of ability, and less had died for it. As soon as the Alpha Spark had traded hands, plants could be pruned from bodies and reestablished healing factors could take care of the rest. From there, they chose their sides.

Julia and Roscoe had no easy time wading through the fighting to find Mischief and Hadassah. Roscoe bit off limbs, Julia stabbed through arteries and vital organs, mountain ash swirling protectively around them all the time. They gained followers, guardians, and, eventually, a helpful guide.

On the front lines, Hadassah was ruthlessly gaining control with Mischief at her side.

Julia arrives bloody, a storm of mountain ash around her, a mountainous beast walking beside her. To the Sacramento Pack, she is Lady Druid, a position they already half-fearfully revered without her being the current acting Emissary for four highly respected Packs.

And Julia arrives with news: _their_ Emissary is dead.

More than half of those rallying against them surrender.

The rest follow their Alpha, the _old_ Alpha, into the moon's shadow.

And Hadassah's reign is secured.

* * *

When the war is won, Mischief brings Hadassah to a darling sort of house. If something so big can still be classified as a house. He brings her to the Pack that dwells within this house, to a woman they tell _legends_ about, and to, at last, her _babies._

Her babies who are... separate?

The amulets, Mischief explains, are dampeners. Their wolves are muted, and all the gifts that come with them. It is a temporary solution — though it brings them relief now, the long-term effects would be no happy thing. 

They need to learn how to control their abilities, he says. And: "I'm working on it," as if it was ever his responsibility, as if it will continue to be long after she and her babies are home and far, far away from here.

She gets distracted from this concern by her fellow Alpha.

Talia Hale: an Alpha who is capable of the Alpha-shift, who single-handedly brought four territories together in harmony, who made one of the most notorious Hunter Clans sign a peace treaty with her cohort. She is, at once, everything Hadassah thought she would be, and _not at all._ She is a myth-kissed reality, with gorgeous eyes and perfect skin and perfect hair and a sweet, assertive voice that blooms into soft-petaled smiles. She is kindness incarnate, maybe. Hadassah half feels as if she's not worthy enough to kiss this woman's feet, let alone stand humbly in her presence.

And yet, Talia begins to speak on their Packs, as close to one another as they are, becoming allies.

And Hadassah... she likes them already. She wants to make friends. Because it is politic and because she _can,_ because it makes the taste of freedom burst across her tongue and trickle daringly down her throat. This is the kind of Pack she used to tell her babies about during the long, sleepless nights, when their bodies clung to each other in twisted, unfathomable ways. This is the kind of Pack she wants _her_ Pack to be.

So she accepts, and she says, "Thank you."

And after Talia has accepted her gratitude with due grace, Hadassah looks at her Devil. This youngling that she had known would be trouble the moment she set eyes on him. The person who has changed her life almost carelessly.

"Thank you," she tells him, hugging her boys close, aglow and refreshed by the changing of the winds, by the ever-fickle turns of Fate. _"Thank you."_

"You've got absolutely nothing to thank me for," he says cheerfully. Heartbeat truth-steady, the strange boy. "I have a feeling you'll be a great Alpha, Hadassah — much better than the other guy."

She throws her head back with a wicked, victory-whetted laugh.

"You two," Mischief says, leaning down to address her babies, sounding happy, "be the best little terrors you can be, alright?"

Her boys look at each other — and then they smile. They smile like little boys being left home alone to jump on the bed and eat their weight in bread and cheese and honey. They smile like _trouble._ She has never seen such an expression on their faces. Her heart clenches sharply in her chest.

And when her eyes leave the sight, they are met with her dead Mate's throne.

 _Her_ throne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed!!! Love love love and many soulhugs~


	11. Interlude (End of Act I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Trigger Warnings :** Stiles has PTSD (lightly shown/implied).
> 
> Also, I might start doing updates once a week on thursdays instead of twice a week on wednesdays and thursdays from here, I don't know — we'll see, we'll see, we'll see.  
> I love you guys & hope you're all staying safe! xoxoxo

Mischief stands in their living room, scent flush with the tacky iron of fresh blood, and says, "I formally apologize, for, um, dropping in unannounced — _literally._ It was kind of a mistake but, still... yeah."

Talia smiles in her motherly way, "You are forgiven, Mischief."

His minor diplomatic mishap absolved, Mischief has a chance that many would give their right arm and their firstborn child for.

He is in Talia Hale's good graces, and they all know the feat that he has just accomplished with the Sacramento Pack. They all know what favours he has done for them — intentionally or not. He could demand anything: gratitude, recognition, a boon, breakfast, a _first-aid kit._

He does not.

He says, a little self-deprecating, "At least my teleportation glitched me to you guys — you know, I accidentally landed in the middle of the pacific, once. While I was fighting a Jorōgumo. It sucked."

"I can imagine," Talia says, somewhere between faint and oddly charmed.

Mischief's eyes crinkle something gentle, slightly pained, and between one breath and the next, he's gone.

Peter's beginning to get the feeling he does that a lot, despite the trouble it seems to cause him.

* * *

"He's younger than Laura," Helena-Mae says, deceptively absent.

Now that the excitement has passed, Peter, Carrie, Róisín, Helena-Mae, and Talia are lingering around the sunroom with mugs of coffee and caffeinated tea. Dawn had crept up on them and was in the process of gliding resolutely into day, offering warm, buttery light that only served to make their eyelids feel heavier.

"That doesn't change anything," Carrie says. By which she means: _he's still dangerous._

Helena-Mae hums something that toes the line of disagreement, but refrains from stepping over it.

Alan sweeps into the room with Philip, then, cutting through the uncharacteristic tension with heaping plates of food and the rather expected news that they're missing the early morning rush. Alan had arrived promptly after he'd been called, looked the twins up and down, determined that they were perfectly healthy and that Talia was dealing with the situation perfectly well, and then he'd wandered off to find Philip for reasons unclear and likely Druidic.

"I believe you two owe me fifty dollars," he says, now.

They all blink at him.

He remains unfathomable.

"Mischief is a Spark, then?" Peter guesses.

Alan smiles enigmatically, "The most powerful one I've ever seen."

Carrie makes a _see what I mean_ gesture.

Helena-Mae lofts a narrow-eyed glare in Carrie's direction, her scent a swarm of bees made hiveless by a swift, well-placed kick; a swarm of bees who mean to get _even._ Wordlessly, she picks herself up from her soft-cushioned wicker chair and stalks out of the room, into the kitchens.

Carrie barely restrains a snarl, uncoiling from the wall and stomping through the side door that leads out onto the wraparound porch. 

Róisín goes rigid for a few moments, apprehensive, but remains seated on the ottoman in the corner surrounded by Ben-J's tall, leafy plants.

It is never a happy thing when the curadh gan chloí fight. But Peter leaves that particular problem to his elder sister — Talia had long ago ordered him never to meddle in their affairs again, seeing as he has this atrocious habit of finding it inappropriately hilarious when they're at each others' throats and tends to egg them on until they're worryingly homicidal.

Peter, himself, thinks they're both right. For all that Mischief is young, the fact remains that he is a demonstrably formidable enemy. (He incited a rebellion and won it in less than _five hours,_ Peter thinks, captivated and dizzy.) But Peter cannot bring himself to think that he is _their_ enemy.

After everything that he has done, how could Peter consider him anything less than an ally? And what would be the point - if Mischief _did_ have ill intentions - of helping their region accumulate so much power through treaties and mergers, of asking for nothing in return?

Peter pays Alan his due, amicable. "You wouldn't happen to mind telling us how you came about this conclusion, would you?"

"That's a very well-made necklace," Alan says of Peter's gifted pendant, not answering him. "It looks good on you." Which is Alan for: _don't lose that, it could save your life one day._

"Thank you," Peter says with a slight, keen smile. He is a man always starving for answers and knowledge, always scheming up ways to glut that ravening appetite — and never is he so unsatisfied as when he keeps company with Alan Deaton.

But patience, always patience.

Even with Alan, he has learned, it pays to wait.

"He could still be a representative of another Pack," Talia says over the rim of her cup, ever the sore loser. "Or a Seer."

"If he is either," Alan says pleasantly, holding out an expectant hand, "I guess I'll just have to pay you back."

Their eyes wage a battle that must, in some other universe, involve steel-plated armies and geographical tactics and sharp-swinging swords.

It is Talia, in the end, who sighs unhappily and gives way the battlefield, slapping her money into Alan's waiting palm.

Philip, conciliatorily, offers his mother a saltwater taffy.

* * *

Julia is waiting for him on the steps outside of the Cardin Hotel with Roscoe.

Stiles lands in the parking lot a few steps away. He is all bruise and ache and clawed gash down his side that'll probably need stitches. Half of him is spun out on the malevolent hiss that this is all a dream — but he can read the big block letters on the front of the building, so there's some hope.

Eyes like freshly fallen snow, he remembers, even after every other packbond had blackened in death.

And cold — deep, the kind that cultivates ice in your bone marrow. Frostbitten lungs, pounding feet, overtaxed legs. They needed to get there first, get there faster. But day meant camp, day meant no cover, meant smoke and gunfire and blood.

"You all right?"

_Jennifer. Darach._

Straight, pale brown hair. Quiet, sunflower bloom eyes. Round face covered in a fine dusting of summery freckles. More '70s flower child than bacchante schoolteacher. And Roscoe's right there, calm as anything.

Not Jennifer, Stiles thinks tiredly. Julia. 

"Julia," he repeats out loud to put himself back on solid ground. "Julia Baccari."

"Mm-hmm," Julia says, getting up and hooking her arm through his, steering him toward her car. "Julia Baccari, Roscoe, Mischief, October 9th 2006."

 _October 9th 2006. No need to fear the daylight, time traveller._ "Everything's okay," he says — to himself, but Julia still replies:

"Everything's just fine."

"Thanks," he huffs as she bustles him and Roscoe into her little rusted-out Toyota. "I'm guessing it's _take me to your leader_ time?"

"Before you decide to run away again," she agrees sunnily. "Absolutely."

Roscoe makes a creaky noise in the backseat, where his massive body is trying to fold down to some comfortable level. His big, wet, luminous eyes blink miserably down at them.

"You are going to owe him _so_ many olives," Stiles remarks.

"Yes," Julia says, reaching up to pat Roscoe's wrinkly head sympathetically. "Yes, I am."


	12. Noah Stilinski (Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Wherin we spend a day with Peter Hale_
> 
> **Trigger Warnings :** Mild Body Horror, Mild Psychological Horror, Nightmares, Implied/Referenced Child Neglect, Alcohol Abuse

White fluorescent lights shriek in the hall, hazy. Two sets of legs pumping, thorough, expedient. Their heavy breathing sounds gauzy through their gas masks. Bullet casings clatter, glitter, muted. White and green marble soaked in shiny pools of mud red blood.

"All clear?" Mischief, brown curls snarled in an ornamental flower, bat dripping death.

"All clear."

There is a map. It is marked. Mischief is studying it with him, apprehensive. His fingers are long, thin; his raw-bitten nails rasp over the laminate. The papery flesh of his fingertips scrapes away as he traces them over watercolour geography. Rosy liquid trails behind his search.

"There are only three left," he says.

"Three," Peter replies wryly. "The magic number."

"If we can get to them first, maybe."

Peter takes up Mischief's hands. 

They are kneeling in front of a roaring flame. _Fire, fire, why is it always Gods forsaken fire?_ Starless sky billows out, infinite, above them. Mischief's hands have split open. Pulsing muscle and shifting sinew, the skin has burst all the way up to his elbows. Peter's hands are wrapped harshly, forcefully around Mischief's wrists. Squish, viscera between his fingers, a messy urge to squeeze: inevitable breaking of fragility, it would be so easy.

He is not angry. He is not concerned. It's a terminally bored, almost playful feeling: what would happen? How much pressure would it take? Would Mischief _let_ him?

Stiles doesn't pull away, but he is shaking. Trembling like the child that he is. Poor little boy. Peter could kill him, spare him the pain. Peter could kill him, just to feel the thrill of that immeasurable power _ground_ beneath his heel.

"What's the point? They're all dead, Stiles."

But, of course, he already knows.

"It's not about them. It can't be, not anymore. The whole fucking _world_ is ending, Peter. What, do you want me to just lie down and let it?" Stiles' eyes harden, he wraps his flayed hands around Peter's wrists in turn and tugs him close—

Foreheads clang painfully together. Peter falls back, his brain rattling perilously in his skull, all white-out agony. 

"Well, _fuck_ that."

Peter laughs and laughs and laughs.

And _wakes up._

Peter wakes up — throat scraped raw — heart aching, so deeply — trying to restrain the blurred, echoey tatters of his subconscious so that they don't escape him. 

It takes a much longer time than he'd like, for him to compose himself and move on with his day.

His Pack gathers around the table in the dining room or on the back porch or in the yard that spills out into the Preserve for breakfast. Carrie presides over the kitchen with her cooks and gardeners, still finishing dishes and serving them until the house has been well rid of all its' school children and out-of-home workers, just in time to start in on lunch. Most of the lower floors have become a wealth of activity and conversation and light.

Derek, depending on the day, will either take his meal in the thick of it right next to his sister, content with the noise so long as he doesn't have to add to it. Or, he will end up on the wooded outskirts, seeking the earth and the wind, insect, and animal stained quiet. Peter strays toward Derek's company, whenever he isn't occupied with his duties or his schemes (and if Derek isn't _avoiding_ him — something which he hopes he will never have to endure again).

Derek gives Peter a vaguely chastising look when he appears at the raucous table.

"Yes, yes, I know. How could I leave my poor little nephew alone to deal with all these heathens by himself? But I need beauty rest to look this pretty," Peter tells him, "or else the constant stress will leave me looking as haggard as our dear Gussy-boy."

"Hey!" Angus calls over the din.

"Come on, Uncle Peter," Laura says laughingly. "He's dealing with finals. Give him a break."

"If he'd take a _nap,"_ Peter says, "I'd be happy to."

Angus, who Peter thinks must be in the crowd of bodies somewhere at the other end of the long slab of breakfast-strewn mahogany, shouts, "Oh, fuck off!" with barely any heat.

"Language!" a chorus of voices holler after him.

"Sorry!" he calls back, sufficiently cowed.

Peter smirks.

Laura and Derek roll their eyes, hard.

Derek slides a plate full of his favourites over to him, presumably gathered and surreptitiously rescued from the descending horde while Peter was busy being late. Peter grins and wraps an arm around his nephew's shoulders, nuzzling into his hair, relishing in their mingled scents and the building effervescence of their packbond. Derek only rolls his eyes again, a badly hidden smile playing at his lips.

Talia, noticing her brother, summons him into her conversation.

And his strange dream further fades into obscurity.

* * *

While the pretence of _drinking buddies_ had been necessary at the start of their relationship, Noah's indulgences with alcohol are becoming troubling.

This is the sixth time Camden has answered the door for his adoptive father — and while he may be a strong kid, Peter doesn't like how much he's taking onto his shoulders.

"If I don't do it," Camden had said once, dryly and half-stubbornly, of running the house, "Stiles will."

But neither of them should _need_ to.

Camden shouldn't have to take up the mantle of current acting adult and parent when there is an adult who should be parenting _already there._

He and Noah have slowly and steadily become something like friends. Very sarcastic, griping, occasionally begrudging friends — but friends all the same. And, as he had a large hand in bringing this little family together, he does feel some semblance of responsibility toward it.

Which is why he drives Noah to Gershe mountain instead of to a bar.

"What the hell," Noah says, "d'you think you're doin'?"

Noah's scent, usually an old relic of a castle's armoury, is flooded with drunkard knights passed out on mead-tarred floors, every ounce of iron and steel dull and rusted.

"What I should've done weeks ago," Peter mutters under his breath. Sighs. "There's a Diner," he tells Noah cheerfully, "right up there. It isn't that far a walk, and they brew their own stout."

Noah squints at the bottom of the climbing hills. "Good beer?"

"Are you doubting my refined tastes, Deputy?" Peter wonders lightly. "I might be inclined to take offence, you know."

Noah glares at him for a moment — two — then heaves a sigh and climbs out of the car. "Goddamned asshole."

Peter grins his victory and follows.

Every five minutes or so, Noah will grumble, "I thought you said it was a _short_ walk."

"No. I said it wasn't a far walk."

"They're the same goddamned thing and they are both filthy lies."

"Oh, calm down. We're almost there."

Three hours later, Noah is nearly sober and drenched in sweat. "We're takin' a break," he pants, collapsing onto a dirt-crusted rock.

 _"Are_ we, now?"

Noah groans and looks up at the sky, as if begging for consolation from the heavens. "Is the Diner even real?"

 _"Yes,"_ Peter says, sitting beside his companion and pulling out his phone. "Donnie's Diner," he taps open their website and hands it over for Noah to peruse. "It's at the end of the trail, halfway up the mountain."

"Peter," Noah says, with quick-gaining outrage. "That's an _eight mile_ trail."

"It would appear so," Peter says airily. "Guess we've only got two more miles to go."

"If this fucking beer doesn't taste like it was brewed by _God himself..."_

Peter smiles a smile full of sharp-edged laughter. "Oh, they don't sell beer at all. It's a family-friendly establishment."

Noah's jaw ticks, and that is all the warning Peter gets before he lunges. Which is an honest mistake on Noah's part: no one would ever look at Peter, with his tendency toward casual suits and high-society manner and think _mixed martial arts._ Nor would they think werewolf, but that's another matter entirely.

Noah tackles him to the ground and, for a moment, they wrestle down the foilage littered incline like children.

Then Peter gets bored and rolls over in Noah's hold, bucking him off to stand. Noah's tossed onto his back, but he recovers quickly in his ire. Peter weaves under a sloppily thrown punch and swings his leg up, foot thudding harshly against chest. Noah is forced backward, winded. He returns like a concussed bloodhound, Peter easily fending him off with quick jabs and kicks and knees. He doesn't play dirty, but he doesn't go easy either.

Noah, to his credit, does actually manage to get a few hits in. They'd never take, Peter being what he is, but they're impressive nevertheless.

Peter waits until Noah looks sober, resigned to defeat, and physically exhausted before wondering, tone idle: "Are you enjoying yourself?"

"Not really," Noah coughs, hands clutching his knees, gulping down air. "No."

"Shall we continue our walk?"

Noah gives him an exasperated, completely bewildered look through one eye. The other is a swollen splash of dusky violet.

"Why does it matter," Peter says, reaching over to fish a twig out of Noah's hair, "whether or not they have beer?"

"It-it doesn't," Noah says, flinching slightly under Peter's ministrations. But now that the fight is over, Peter has no intent to continue it. Noah seems even more bewildered as Peter drags him back over to their sitting rock and sets to combing the detritus off of his person. "But you _lied_ to me," he snaps, trying to smack Peter away.

"Yes, I did," Peter says, undeterred. "Have you lied to anyone, lately, Noah?"

"What are you—"

"Those kids, maybe? I'm sure you adopted them under the premise of giving them a safe environment. I am also sure that watching you become an alcoholic just like Keith Lahey isn't reassuring to them in the slightest."

Noah is no longer paying attention to Peter's plucking leaves from his attire. "I am not becoming an _alcoholic."_

"For heavens' sake, Noah," Peter snarls, tugging sharply on a lock of hair. "Camden gives Isaac and Stiles baths, he takes them to and from school, he helps them with their homework, he cooks for them, he cleans your whole Gods' damned house and takes care of all of your bills — and he has to fight with _Stiles_ for the privilege. Because these were things that Stiles had to learn how to do before Camden got there. These were things Stiles - eight-year-old, grieving for his mother, Stiles - was already doing. And where were you, Noah? Don't you dare say working because you and I both know that's not the whole truth."

Peter releases an aggravated breath and continues his grooming. Noah is silent, head bowed, submitting.

He does not say a word when Peter hauls him to his feet and leads him further along the trail. Their pace is slow and limping, but they do inevitably get there.

"Y'all just look absolutely _dreadful,"_ a pink-haired girl with a soda bottle sticker on her name-tag says when they come in. "Well," she sighs, "right this way."

"Someone come in, Sierra?" a man calls from the kitchen in the back.

"Yes, Daddy. Seatin' them now," she bustles them into a booth and hands them both menus. "You're our only customers right now, so just take your time and holler when you need me. I'll be," she points at a stool over by the counter, "right over there, mmkay?"

They both offer their thanks for her service and she strides to her stool.

"We left your phone," Noah ventures.

"Yes," Peter says.

He waits, the way he always waits.

"So," Noah says at last, "no more drinking."

"No more drinking," Peter agrees with a keen, wildly proud smile. "Don't worry," he says, "I'll help."

Noah eyes him warily, "What do you mean, _you'll help?"_

Peter's smile only widens.

* * *

Derek's in Peter's study when he returns home, although Laura isn't.

He's sitting in one of the chairs in front of Peter's desk, book open in his lap, pen in hand. It's a bad habit Peter's had since childhood, writing in the margins of books. A bad habit he'd handed down to Derek completely without meaning to, and one he observes with a truly ridiculous amount of affection.

They sit with each other in silence for a while, Peter working and Derek reading.

When Peter's finished, Derek hands the book over to him. _You smell like someone,_ in sloping print on the border of the page.

 _Deputy Stilinski,_ Peter writes back, because Derek has long since become familiar with Peter's amassing connections for their family. _Would you like to meet him?_

Derek reads the note and looks sharply up at him. Taps his fingers on the yellowed paper. Peter waits.

_What does he mean to you?_

Peter sits back, genuinely surprised. Honestly, he should have seen that one coming. _Not everything,_ Peter writes. _But I must admit I would care if he died._

Derek nods, then, an acceptance and answer both, before he writes a question related to the actual book that requires Peter reading back a chapter in order to answer. They continue reading together like that until well after Derek should've gone to bed, something they only notice when Laura bursts in.

"It's a schoolday," she says, in a perfect imitation of Carrie's sandpapery drawl. "If you don't get your butt in bed, child, I do not care who your mother is, I will drag you to it and tie you down myself."

Derek laughs, half sleep-deprived punch drunk and half completely overwhelmed. Peter chuckles, shakes his head ruefully, and helps Laura gather her somnolent brother up and away to his bed.

"I did the same thing to Henley," Laura confides, "and she jumped to the freaking ceiling before she realized it was only me."

"You're terrible," Peter says, mussing her hair. "Good girl."


	13. Noah Stilinski (Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Trigger Warnings :** Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse, Minor Psychological Horror, Nightmares

Noah has the house all to himself for the weekend and he's determined to take advantage of it.

Camden's on a field trip — it'd been the first time Noah had seen the Camden so excited over something, and he's been trying harder lately to get his kids to really _be_ kids, so he'd let him go happily. Not without programming three new emergency numbers and an SOS app into his phone, making him promise to call if he needed _anything,_ and saying I love you first. All of which Camden had responded to with a clumsy, half-desperate hug that'd made Noah's heart crack open.

Stiles and Isaac are having a Star Wars marathon sleepover with Scott, because Stiles is of the opinion that _both_ of his soul brothers not having seen the films is an atrocity of apocalyptic proportions. Melissa had promised to look after them over the weekend, and so Noah's free and clear to - barring any emergencies - veg out for two days straight.

All that high flying optimism is thrown out the window when his doorbell rings.

Noah, who had _just_ sat himself down with a pizza and a soda and every intention of watching the game, groans. If that is somehow Stiles, here to harangue him into giving up his junk food for a healthy alternative because, _heart attacks, Dad!_ Noah is going to kill something. He doesn't even _have_ heart problems for chrissakes.

"Hello, Deputy," Peter Hale says in that silk-purr tone of his when Noah opens the door. He holds out two steaming paper cups and an armful of take-out from Donnie's Diner.

"Hello, Hale," he returns warily, letting Peter in.

Peter sets his offerings down on the dining room table with a little flourish, willfully ignoring the pizza Noah's already got on the coffee table in the living room. (Noah knows for a fact that he's willfully ignoring it because Peter always makes a face whenever he's in the vicinity of 'Noah's unseemly additions to his cholesterol' — a face that's not unlike the face one would make when presented with a dumpster full of dirty diapers. Noah blames Stiles' bad influence and Peter's ungodly sense of smell.)

Noah takes his little red chip out of his pocket and flips it toward Peter who, of course, snatches it out of the air with ease. "Thirty days," he says. "Well, thirty-five, now."

Peter grins in the way a mother lion might after their cubs' first kill, "That's _wonderful,_ Noah."

"Uh-huh," Noah says.

He doesn't think he will ever get over just how unconventional his friendship with Peter Hale is. He probably _shouldn't_ get over it, considering how it started: a lawyer offering to work a case pro bono in exchange for a Deputy's fervent promise to look out for said lawyer's family is shady at best. But Noah hadn't had the money and Peter's reputation had preceded him. Not that Noah's really complaining — he got his boys, he's fairly certain he got a _second chance_ on top of that, and if he accidentally signed himself up to be dirty for the local mafia in the process then so be it.

Noah tilts his head toward the Diner food being laid out for a feast and asks wryly, "I take it you're trying to butter me up for something?"

"Not _butter you up,_ necessarily," Peter says, words sleek and cool with a glancing touch of humour. "There is a thing I would like to tell you, and it will be easier for all involved if you are told it while you're in a... _kind_ mood."

"Is this the part where you tell me about all of your family's sordid illegal activity and ask me to be in your corner when I become the Sheriff?" Noah wonders. "Because I'm gonna need more than a burger and hot chocolate to be in a _kind_ enough mood for that."

Peter's smirk is fleeting and deserts him faster than it arrives, leaving his snowdrift eyes uncharacteristically sombre, "If it _was_ that - running jokes aside - how would you feel?"

"Well," Noah admits, "I wouldn't arrest you right off the bat."

"No?"

"No. But I'd need a night to sleep on it." 

This is a bald-faced lie. Noah had decided long before now what he would do when this conversation came to pass.

And he'd known it _would_ come to pass.

The better he'd gotten to know Peter, the more sure of it he was. It's this gut feeling, whenever Peter's eyes go from freshly fallen snow to blacktop ice-slick. And Noah knows - has been point-blank _shown_ \- that for all the weapons and training he's got, Peter is the most dangerous man in this room. But there are days when Peter is all calculating confidence, when his aura solidifies into a mantling ferocity that says: _don't you dare fuck this up,_ and, _I will stop you if you try._

That says: _I would slaughter masses for you._

Noah thinks he's a little unsettled by that sentiment.

Noah thinks he might be a little comforted by it, too. What that says about him, he doesn't know.

But their friendship, and Peter's fondness for Noah and his boys, when he allows himself to show it... Who knows? Maybe it's all a ploy. If it is, it's working, because even if Noah hadn't already technically agreed to all this to buy himself a lawyer, he's pretty sure he'd be doing it anyway — aiding and abetting whatever this turns out to be.

God help him.

"Would you like me to _explain_ it to you?" Peter asks lightly. "Our... sordid illegal activity?"

"Jesus Christ."

"Now, now. _He's_ got nothing to do with it."

"Maybe not. But Lady Justice—" 

"Who I might remind you is _blind."_

"Peter."

Peter smirks, a sly sliver of a thing, "You are curious, though, aren't you? Otherwise, you'd have said plausible deniability and been done with it, hm?"

Peter's younger than him, but they still went to High School together. A small-town thing, knowing everyone and their cousin by name even if you've never actually met them before. He's always liked that intimacy, liked that pool of shared knowledge. But he also likes the secrets — they feel sharper when people are closer together, more important.

There is a terrible thrill, in knowing something your neighbour doesn't. A kind of power that Noah's always privately enjoyed. It is made all the sweeter when the confidence is offered freely, when you're being trusted so deeply, especially by someone who understands you better than most do. Someone who has not only recognized some of your worst flaws, but who has helped you overcome them, who has accepted you anyway.

Noah can't help himself, wondering how the Hales are getting away with whatever they're getting away with, wondering what they're up to behind closed doors. And, if he's honest, wondering how and why and what on earth they'd need _his_ help with.

"Asshole," Noah grunts as he slides into the chair across from Peter's. "You know damn well that I'd die before I'd let this go without getting any goddamn answers first, just like you know I'd never rat you out — especially not after... everything"

"Yes," Peter says, all cat got the cream easy, lazy, smug.

Noah ought to shake the life outta him.

"You know," Noah says with fatalistic cheer, after they've both put away a few bites, "I always thought the first time I'd break the law it would be for my son — _any_ of my sons. Guess I was wrong, huh?"

"It would appear so," Peter agrees, airy and vaguely careful.

"All right," Noah says, offering up a toast. The rim of Peter's cup whispers against his. _"Spill."_

And the car crash inducing ice in those crystalline eyes, for whatever reason, softens.

And Peter tells him everything.

* * *

Noah finds, at four o'clock in the morning, still recovering from a heavy blow of culture-shock to the head, that any trouble he'd assumed he'd have in reconciling his friendship with his job? Blown out of the water.

The Hales aren't the mafia.

They're werewolves.

And they've been protecting this town since the bygone era.

Noah's reeling, and he guesses he will be reeling for a while, but he's more than willing to help. And - given the proof, given all manner of things he has been through himself now explained - he's more than willing to accept his friend for what he is.

(After all, it's only fair to return the favour, right?)

The expression Peter gives him for that acceptance is happier than anything he's seen on the man before now, and Noah's quite frankly weirded out by it.

"Hey," Noah wonders, half in a daze, "would you have told me even if I hadn't gotten elected?"

"Of course," Peter says, as if this answer were obvious. "We're friends. Keeping secrets from you annoys me beyond measure."

Noah laughs. "Oh, man. I have _the worst_ taste in friends."

Peter cocks an eyebrow, "You'd say such a thing about Melissa?"

"Melissa?" Noah repeats incredulously. "Melissa's worse than you. And you're a supernatural-" he flaps a hand around- "knight errant."

Peter blinks at him, mouths _knight errant_ to himself, and looks askance at the sobriety chip.

Noah rolls his eyes so hard he's surprised he doesn't strain himself.

* * *

A grave.

 **Derek Hale** etched starkly into polished gray marble. Next to Laura Hale. Talia Hale. A graveyard full of his last name, his family.

Peter feels anger, lava pooling inexorably forward, languid and deadly and something that no one can stop until it is _done._ He feels violence and vengeance stirring in his heart, ravenous twins, so terribly familiar. He does not feel grief or sorrow or fear.

(But he should. That should be all that he feels. What's wrong with him? Something is wrong, something isn't right—)

"Peter." Mischief. A building, or a skeleton of a building. The charred remains of what once was. "We've gotta go."

"We were meant to protect this place," Peter says, vaguely disappointed beneath the churning volcano.

Mischief wraps his arms around him. Peter can't smell him through the gas mask, but their scents are being interwoven. One end of their packbond aches urgently, reaches and reaches and _reaches_ endlessly out into the void. When will Stiles learn to stop giving what he will never receive in return?

"I know," Mischief murmurs, "and I'm sorry." He pulls away, presses their foreheads together in a moment of weakness Peter can only feel disgusted by. He keeps that disgust to himself — it is all the kindness he has left to offer. "But there are other places we need to protect, now."

A skin and bones hand in his. Descending charcoal steps. Led away, away, away. One last glance back. The Hale house in all its' glory, beautiful, nostalgiac, no lights on in any window.

And Peter jerks awake in his bed, gasping for air — suffused in a pure, condensed desolation. For a moment, it is real. For a moment, they're all dead, and he reaches out for them savagely, frantically and — there, all of them: a bundle of warm, glowing, _living_ packbonds right where he expects them to be. 

Relief washes over him, so wondrously immense that he almost thinks himself silly. He laughs in disbelief and wonder. He digs his knuckles into his trembling eyes. He misses the way his pendant's triskele had been _burning_ and is only just now starting to cool down.

 _Strange dream,_ he thinks, _what a strange dream._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys are all doing well, much love and many soulhugs <3 <3 <3 Also, we hit 1,000 kudos!!!! OMG, you guys are so freaking incredible, thank you 🌺💕🌺


	14. The Giliberto Compound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, hi. I hope everyone's okay and doing everything they can to stay safe. All of your lovely comments, although I'm not currently in a place to answer them, have been so charming and kind and, just, thanks for being awesome, guys _soulhugs~_
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Stiles has PTSD (and probably some time travelling cognitive dissonance), Implied/Referenced Homicidal Intent

Arms crossed on the passenger door's window-sill, Stiles watches the scenery change from city to town to desert.

Julia's rolled down the back seat windows, too, and Roscoe's big ol' head is hanging out, his pendulous lips flapping in the wind. To make it even more ridiculous, he keeps barking up a howl at familiar landmarks and the occasional cat.

Stiles chuckles tiredly, watching him.

He's been running the gauntlet ever since — well. He'd made a list when he'd gotten here, of all the people he needed to save and all the things he needed to do. A flexible skeleton he's been racing down, trying desperately to reach the point of no return.

Building the foundations for a future that he won't be able to recognize. Hopefully.

Stiles is exhausted. Even though he shouldn't be, cannot _allow_ himself to be.

But he has to keep moving. If he ever stops, someone will die. He'll die. Or he'll remember.

Every time he closes his eyes, he sees the end of the world — and shivers, all the way through. The blood loss might have something to do with that. Seeing the Hales... seeing _Peter_ might have something to do with that.

"Are you cold?" Julia asks softly, all concern.

He hums in the negative. Keeps his eyes open. Gives Julia his back, open and undefended. He hopes she understands the amount of trust that takes. He hopes she doesn't ask him any more questions that he can't answer.

* * *

The Giliberto Pack is not what he'd been expecting. Not that he knows, exactly, what he _had_ been expecting.

They're still a mile removed when an alarming chorus roars up to greet them. It sounds like thousands of frenzied wolves calling out, seeking brethren or blood, and Stiles is sure that if he were any clueless wanderer right now he'd be running for his life.

Julia's car ploughs through a winding trail in the sand to a giant chain-link fence, to a rolling gate that shudders as it's climbed, and she slaps her hand twice against her windshield as soon as the climber can see her. The climber grins crookedly, waves to someone behind him, lets loose a piercing cry, and disappears from sight. 

The gate opens.

A group of people cluster around the car yipping and crooning and hollering as Julia slowly pulls in, face stretched into a wide grin. Stiles shies away from the sudden influx of bodies and noise, schooling himself into guarded impassivity. Roscoe barks right along with them, somewhere between delighted and prepared to fight.

The gate closes. Decorated in colourful tarps and collage-painted wood panelling, it's closing seems to separate them from the outside world entirely.

Stiles exhales a little too harshly.

Julia takes his hand in easy comfort. She'd warned him about this before they got here — Kali's howlers. Stiles wonders if she's still treating him so carefully because of his panic attack earlier or if it's something else. Maybe this is Julia's version of friendly and he needs to get over himself and accept it.

He's not very good at people unless there's a plan involved. Prolonged interaction with someone who isn't a psychopath, or who isn't actively trying to kill him, or who _he_ isn't actively trying to kill has become extremely fucking weird. He's not used to it.

Still, he flickers a smile at her when she squeezes his hand, and they file out of her car.

Roscoe creaks and groans as he stretches from the cramped space, happy to be free. 

Stiles scratches a floppy ear and says, "We're here to bark, not bite." _Don't attack anyone unless they attack you first._

Roscoe noses his hair wetly and makes a sound like a revving engine. Stiles grins at him.

Kali's howlers caper and sing their animal song of welcome. Julia, Stiles, and Roscoe are drawn by the crowd into the red clay alleyways that serpentine all throughout the compound's sprawling pavilions.

They stop beside a brick and cement hut, shadowed by a much taller building at their backs. The air outside of the open doorway is thick and rich and mouth-watering. Stiles can hear the clatter-clang of pots and pans, the sizzling of oils and meats, the susurrus hiss of running water as soon as their party's clamour dies down.

The climber from before hops up the three steps squatting under the door, leans inside and calls: "Nunna! Our precious jewel has returned."

"Has she?" an elegant woman calls back. She wipes her hands on her checkered apron and glides out of her place in the busied system of cooks to attend them. She reaches for Julia the second she's close enough, wrapping her up in a tight hug. "Oh, I pray the moon has been shining upon you, honey."

"No shadows on me," Julia sighs. "But I may have cast a few, myself."

Nunna pulls away and kisses her forehead, her eyelids. "I'm sure Dirgen appreciates the new additions to His garden." Then she turns to Stiles, an eyebrow raised. "You brought a guest?"

"Yes," Julia says brightly. "Mischief. Kali wants me to introduce her."

"Ah," Nunna says, understanding. _"Mischief."_

Stiles fidgets. "Um. Hi."

Nunna smiles at him like he's a wayward child she thinks she could get away with mothering. Or like he is a pretty morsel she wants to eat. Stiles can't really tell. Both are equally unnerving.

"Come," she says, "I'll take you."

And they're off again, Kali's howlers falling back to return to their guarding of the gates.

They pass chickens and goats, all of whom run for cover at the sight of Roscoe. They pass a courtyard hemmed in by tables and trees and fire-pits, a graveyard presided over by a shrine, and a large gazebo housing a small spring where there are people sewing and doing laundry and watching young children play.

As soon as those children catch sight of a stranger in their midst, they shriek and gather tight around the spring, whispering and giggling to each other.

Stiles hovers under Roscoe's shade and tries not to think about how Kali must've killed them all in cold blood. He tries not to think about how, unlike Julia, her face and name will be the same.

She will still be the woman who chose, in another timeline, to slaughter her Pack.

And _why?_ For what? Could she do it again, under the right circumstances?

Yes, Stiles saved Deucalion, avenged Ennis' Beta, and got said Beta's body returned to Ennis so he could bury him properly. But is that enough?

* * *

Nunna leads them to a big house, and guides them inside, into the drawing-room.

There is a peach-coloured vessel, taller than it is wide, sitting pretty next to the drawing-room's archway. It's filled to the brim with something white and granular. Salt, maybe, though it carries an unfamiliar scent and magical texture. Nunna takes from the vessel and kisses the coarse powder, blows half of it into the air and drops the rest, stomping down on it.

Julia does the same.

Stiles doesn't seem to be expected to follow along, which is nice since he has no earthly idea what this little ritual is for or what it means.

Roscoe points his nose in the direction of the women's wind-scattered salt-mixture, sniffs curiously, and sneezes. Stiles rolls his eyes at him, Julia laughs softly.

Kali, sitting in front of them on a low, woven bench, waits. But there's something of a smile in her eyes, which is... well, at least she's not drooling over the prospect of Derek's corpse.

So that's something.

"Welcome home, Jules," Kali says warmly. 

Wow. She sounds, like, loving, almost.

Stiles should not be creeped out by that. Why is he creeped out by that?

"Thank you, Alpha. I'm glad to have returned," Julia says, sweet and decorous. "I brought someone I thought you might like to meet." She gentles Stiles forward. "Alpha, this is my new friend: Mischief."

"Mischief," Kali intones, waving him to a cosy-looking cushion on the floor. "I've heard so much about you."

"Uh, same," he says, taking a seat. "Sorta."

Julia and Nunna both sit with Kali, her bench big enough that it could easily take on ten more, and covered in lush blankets and knitted pillows and a few stuffed animals. It's furniture _made_ with Pack in mind.

 _Everything_ in this room is like that, all geared toward large groups and closeness and comfort.

"Not from her," he decides to tack on, of Julia. "But, y'know, I've got my grapevines and gossips."

"And what have you heard about me?" Kali wonders.

"That you have more blue-eyed Betas than any other Pack on the west coast," Stiles tells her honestly. "That you're ruthless and cruel."

She smirks, eyes gone hard. "Do you agree with them? Your grapevines and gossips?"

Stiles could say a lot to that. He could say that he thinks eye colour prejudice is ridiculous. He could say that more than half of his Pack were blue-eyed, before they all died. He could say that he is still so busy struggling not to conflate her with a person he hopes she will never become, that her still _having a Pack at all_ feels like some measure of victory and reassurance. 

But Stiles has never been an honest guy, and he's been floating through this timeline on silence and lies and evasion for so long that he's sure the truth will remain locked within him forever, rotting.

"Nah," he says, carefree. "I'd rather get to know you for myself."

_Get to know the person you were. Keep you from ever becoming the person I met._

Julia beams at him. Kali's eyes soften to sparkle.

"You know what?" she says. "I think I'd like that, too."


	15. Kali Giliberto

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Trigger Warnings :** Stiles has PTSD, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse

Kali is surprised by him, Mischief.

He is there and gone so quickly, like a single bolt of lightning in a starless sky. And Kali had been so stunned by that fleeting flash she'd missed her chance to go over — _anything,_ really.

Damn.

"He's always doing that," Julia sighs beside her.

He is. From terrified highschool girls to Selkie Herds to dissolved or rebranded Hunter Clans and 'were Packs, everyone says the same thing about this kid. He never sticks around for the _by-your-leaves_ or the _thank-yous_ or the _let's get this fucker and kill him's._

In all these stories that are not quite legends, but getting there, that's the one consistent thing. The baseball bat, too, but sometimes it's brass or nail-studded wood or a medieval sword. The gas mask occasionally gets lost in the action. The red hoodie is most forgettable. And nobody ever says _gangly teenager._

He'd been snarky and awkward and fatigued. He'd smelled like blood and ash and libraries. He'd spent half of their meeting talking to her as if they were equals and the other half acting supremely uncomfortable.

Kali had built up this image of him in her head based on the whispers and what Julia had been able/willing to tell her. He'd been nothing like it.

"Do you think he'll be back?" she asks.

"If he feels like it, I guess," Julia says, sounding wistful.

Kali hums to herself, then coils an arm around Julia's shoulders and tucks her into her side, "I knew you could do it, Jules. Thank you."

Julia grins, always so happy whenever she's fulfilled an order Kali's given her. Kali kisses the top of her head and ponders Mischief's many mysteries.

* * *

Stiles returns to his apartment long enough to down a few Advil and deal with his wounds. He lies on the floor and breathes for a few minutes, chews on the whole of this two-day stretch of _a lot_ and swallows it.

Then he gets up.

He takes the sacred ewer and he goes to the Beacon Hills Preserve. He and Roscoe walk to the northern shore of Lighthouse Lake, a quiet dark silken pool, and Stiles makes a note to himself to check in on Lorraine soon. They follow the lake's main inlet -Sufrira River - south, deeper into the forest, cutting closer to the Hales'. 

Stiles wades in where the water is fast and muddy and _dangerous._

He fills his ewer with that water.

He climbs out of the river, chilled and exhilarated.

Roscoe lies flat on his belly so Stiles can mount him, and runs straight for the Nemeton.

A field of blessed barley dances around the tree stump. And in the root-cellar, Stiles knows, there is a Nogitsune bound. A Nogitsune he hopes to purify, but they're not quite there yet.

From the crack in the middle of the stump, a new tree is already sprouting.

Roscoe bows before the tree and Stiles does the same before sliding off Roscoe's back. He tips his ewer toward the Nemeton's vulnerable, ringed wood and water clear and glittering flows. He walks in a slow circle, soaking the felled, ancient tree.

He turns to Roscoe when he is done.

"Let's go home," he says.

And Roscoe croons a car-crash howl.

* * *

Mischief does come back.

He visits, a few times a week and never for very long. Julia's got his cellphone number and he complains that she's something of a nag, but his tone never carries any heat. Sometimes Roscoe will show up out of the blue without him. He likes to play with the pups and scare the hell out of the chickens, and he's always after Julia for her olives.

The olives are from their garden, and Julia's habitually carried a little baggie of them on her since she was twelve. They're her favourite snack and she's never been a fan of sharing her private stash. Roscoe, Kali has learned, is an exception to that rule.

And she can't even feel annoyed about it; him turning those big, lamplight eyes on her and opening the drooping folds of his mouth in a wrinkly, doddering smile earns him instant forgiveness every single godsdamned time.

Kali's about as subtle as a bomb, but she at least tries to be crafty with her information fishing when she finally manages to arrange it. "Heard you wrote up our treaty with the Argents," she says one day, when Mischief is in Julia's apartments, installing wards.

He, apparently, takes his friend's safety Very Seriously, and doesn't like how easy it's been for him to break into the compound. Julia has pointed out to him that literally _nobody else_ can just _teleport in_ like he does. She's also pointed out that he's got what amounts to a standing invitation into her home.

If the little metal trinkets he's hanging up are anything to go by, Mischief doesn't care.

"Ish," he says.

Julia looks up from her herb/insect/whatever-the-fuck measuring and frowns at him. "That's not even a word."

Mischief rolls his eyes, "Well, I mean, I didn't _write it_ write it. The Argents wrote it. I just... added a few things."

Kali has seen that treaty first hand - she had to, to sign it - so she knows for a fact that what he just said was a steaming pile of bullshit. There were maybe three things left of the old treaty in the revised version. Three _small_ things.

"How old are you, anyway?" she asks on another day, after Mischief and Roscoe have been waylaid at the heart-spring by a gaggle of over-excited pups. He must have a soft spot for them, or respect for Roscoe's, because he normally would've ghosted by now.

"Turned eighteen yesterday," he says.

"Really?" Julia cuts in, "Why didn't you tell me?"

He quirks an odd look at her. Ruffles her hair. "I don't like parties or surprises, Julia," he says, "so don't even _think_ about it."

"I wasn't," Julia says, sulkily, and Mischief snorts.

"Do your parents approve of all your—" Kali tries to find a nice way to say it. Mischief is making so many things better, but the only reason he's in their company today is because he was bleeding out on Julia's couch last night. And his death-toll is nothing to sniff at, whatever good it may be achieving. "—adventures?"

The parchment in his scent warps with rot, his bookshelves swell with seawater, his sunlight is snuffed out by stormclouds. _Grief,_ putrid and nauseating. Mischief only shrugs, though, and says, "Who knows."

Paleadnysa give strength.

There is one question, however, that Kali is slowly beginning to feel she doesn't need to ask: _Do you have a Pack? Who are they?_

Because, frankly, it becomes quite obvious the moment you've spent any amount of time with him.

The Hales.

It's lurking behind every word and movement. Gerard and Kate because they'd been circling, getting closer, predators snapping at the flank of their prey. Paige and Ennis for the pretty boy, Alpha's son's sake; following through on Lucas to help Ennis settle down. And everything he's done for the Hale region?

Well, it's in the name, isn't it?

He's given Talia Banshees, treaties, protection. Now that Kali knows him better, understands him better, she can hear it in the whispers he kicks up like dust in his wake: if anybody goes after the Hale region with malicious intent, they better watch out for the guy with the bat. He brings chaos with him — change. And nobody wants to be on the wrong side of change, because that is a very good way to get dead. Or worse.

* * *

Kali _still_ has the most blue-eyed Betas on the west coast — in the Hale region, even after the Sacramento Pack comes into the fold. They're a close second, though, and they have far more Bitten Betas. Ennis' Pack is third behind them, and Deucalion's is fourth.

Talia is the only one who's Pack is clean of blue-eyes, if you don't count Peter Hale. And most don't. 

Peter Hale is Talia's _Left Hand._ That can mean a lot of things. For the Hale Pack, it means he is in a strange position of power: his duty is to protect them, by any means necessary. His eyes are an inevitable consequence of that. But as much as he does for his Pack and as much authority as he may have, Kali's pretty damned sure most of his packmates would be hard-pressed to trust him.

Kali has seen Talia's Betas be wary and suspicious to the point of disrespect where Peter is concerned. She has also seen Talia do nothing about it, though she doesn't actively participate.

And that... says something.

And Kali knows, can see it in her eyes, that Talia pities them, or thinks she's better than them. Kali half hates for that sometimes.

Peter is sent in his Alpha's place more often than Talia actually deigns to show up, thank all the Gods, so Kali doesn't normally have to deal with all her tactful condescension.

Every once in a while, she'll say to him, "If you ever feel like staging a coup..."

And Peter will smile his blandest smile at her. "I love my sister, Kali."

"Yeah. But she's kind of a bitch."

"Is she? I had _no idea."_

Mischief isn't like the rest of his Pack, it seems.

She guesses it would be a little hypocritical of him if he was, seeing as he'd be blue-eyed if _he_ was a wolf.

It surprises her, anyway, when she comes across him fighting with Old Ren. 

Renée Giliberto is from her Grandaddy's generation and has _detested_ every move Kali's made since she inherited the Alpha Spark. Allowing her Mama's religion to take hold and grow like wild ivy, not regularly purging the Pack of blue-eyed kin (via abandonment or brutal public executions), adopting orphaned Betas before they could go Omega no matter their eye colour — these are only the worst of Kali's sins by Old Ren's wacko standards.

She's not the only one who disagrees with Kali's rule, but she is the most outspoken of them.

They're in the heart-spring creche, Mischief and Old Ren. Roscoe's gathered the pups away from the confrontation, using his massive body to block them from the scene.

"What in the nine _hells,"_ Kali cuts through Old Ren's shouting, "is going on here?"

"He wants to bring a _Kanima_ into our home," Old Ren tells her, outraged.

Kali blinks. Turns to Mischief with inquiry writ across her face. Kanimas, moreso than blue-eyes could ever be, are ostracized and detested. They're considered abominations.

"I wanted to _ask,"_ he says stiffly, "if you'd perhaps be willing to adopt a _seven-year-old little girl_ into your Pack. Seeing as she doesn't have anywhere else to go, and her family was killed by Hunters."

"Okay," Kali says, pretty much immediately decided. "Sure."

Mischief looks at her with some odd mixture of fierce approval and tentative hope. It makes her want to stand up straighter, raise her chin, show him that she is kinder than the whispers have always painted her.

"Your Daddy would hate you," Old Ren spits. "He would hate seeing what you've become. He would hate how you have _poisoned_ his Pack."

Before Kali's stomach can even begin to sour, before her heart can grow cold and windy and vicious, Mischief says, "Then fuck him."

Old Ren's eyes bulge, and all the packmates within hearing distance go shock-still. Mischief doesn't pay them any mind. His attention is tunnelled on Kali, and she can almost feel him, striving to lead her toward _something._

"If he's rolling in his grave because his daughter is doing the right thing," Mischief says, "then fuck him."

"I'm with Mischief," Julia says. And Kali hadn't even noticed her, but there she is, glaring narrowly at Old Ren from the edge of the heart-spring. "Fuck him."

For a snap of a second, Kali is taken back to when she was younger. Julia used to hold her after Daddy's _training sessions._ Used to hold her and let her cry long after the wounds had healed. Used to seem so big, even though they were the same age and the same height and Daddy was always saying that Julia was _human_ and _weak._

But Julia would bore holes into Daddy with her eyes, and she'd throw insults couched in pretty words, and she'd frown in that way that meant she'd be sneering if she weren't so prim-proper. Julia was their Emissary's apprentice. Julia was _Mama's_ creature. Daddy couldn't touch her.

Kali forces herself to breathe. She tells Old Ren, with wine-red eyes, "My Father is dead. I am your Alpha, now. We are adopting this girl and she will be your kin and you will deal with it or you will _go."_ Old Ren flinches back from the roar in her voice, from the implication in her words. "Am I understood?"

"Yes," Old Ren says feebly, and Kali grins at her, all teeth.

She takes a moment to soothe the little ones, to tell them they'll have a new friend to play with soon, and then she gathers Julia, Mischief, and Roscoe to her. "So," she says, "when are you bringing the newbie home?"

Julia, a pail of water on her arm and a glow about her face, says, "We should tell Nunna. Have a big welcoming feast set out for her when she gets here."

Mischief laughs, rough and grateful, and his scent seems to bloom: ancient texts gilded with gold, sunlight dancing through the windows, dried lavender in the bookshelves' fresh-dusted corners. "Tomorrow," he says. "I'll bring her tomorrow."

The next day, there is a feast. There is a celebration. There is a little girl with tawny skin and haunted brown eyes who slowly brightens at the unconditional acceptance she receives.

And Mischief tells her, _"Thank you."_

And Julia grasps her face and kisses her forehead, her eyelids. "I'm so proud of you," she says breathlessly, her cheeks and ears flushed a bright, vivid red.

Kali just hugs her, hard and bruising.

And for the first time since her Daddy died, Kali doesn't feel as if she owes him _anything._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed! _so many soulhugs_


	16. The Calm Before The Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Wherein we spend the day with Derek Hale._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys are all being safe out there, and that you're all okay. I love you all and I'm so grateful to everyone who's been leaving comments and kudos, you're all the freaking best.
> 
>  **Blanket Warning :** there are going to be animal sacrifices to Gods, as well as werewolves who hunt and eat raw animals, etcetera, like, littered throughout this fic? I promise I'll put it in the warnings if it's more explicit than a mention/reference, but if it isn't, this is your blanket warning.
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Nightmares, Implied/Referenced Kate Argent, Light Psychological Horror

Derek thrashes out of his bed and thuds knees-first on the hardwood floor, gasping for air. His heart is fermenting in his stomach-acid, dread pumping sludge-like through his veins. The nightmare dissipates like fog the moment he realizes he'd been dreaming at all, but the emotions it inspired linger.

He flops over onto his back, stifling a groan.

 _"Fingers,"_ some subconscious vestige echoes. _"In dreams you have extra fingers."_

Almost instinctively, Derek checks. Ten and only ten.

Okay, he thinks, pushing himself up. It's barely four o'clock in the morning but he's definitely not going back to sleep any time soon.

Might as well study.

* * *

There's a narrow branch of the Sufrira that Derek likes, a forty-minute run through the Preserve from their backyard. The water goes shallow and clear there in a way that it doesn't anywhere else.

Derek has always had a stronger connection to his wolf than most of his siblings, most of his packmates. 

He was five when the pool of kids being homeschooled with him started draining into the public school system, and seven when he was the last one left in his age group still deemed incapable of _behaving_ around civilians.

A werewolf mother shifts to give birth — not because it is necessary for the baby but because it is necessary for _her._ It's her body's way of dealing with what it must endure in order to achieve a natural birth. Werewolves can't really give birth any other way. But normally the baby, whatever they are meant to be, is delivered as human-shaped as any other. Derek has been told, multiple times, that he crept out of the womb with his claws and fangs out, scowling at the world.

Uncle Peter claims that this is an over-exaggeration. "I can't imagine what state your mother would've been in if you _had_ been shifted while she was in labour."

The fact is that Derek was born in the middle of a rainy afternoon in May and he shifted before he could even be nursed. His first cry was a howl. 

It can take days, weeks, months, very rarely a year or two for a Born wolf to grow into their wolven aspect. It had taken Derek seconds.

Existing _within_ his shift has always been easier for him than existing outside of it. The world makes more sense when he is shifted. His own mind makes more sense when he is shifted.

Being left behind because he couldn't pretend human enough to be around humans hadn't seemed like the end of the world to him, back then. But he remembers how troubled his packmates had been: Mom had given him a chant and a talisman with the triskelion on it; to help him focus, she'd said. The kids who were no longer being homeschooled with him had sought to convince him that real school was _much_ better. His tutors had all but begged him to try harder.

When _Laura_ had started going to school — that had been startling. Intimidating.

Laura had never solely been his big sister. She had been the only person who understood him. When words got gummed up in his head, and nobody else would wait for them to make their way to his tongue. When he'd crouch down beneath his skin into something that would rather hunt rabbits than keep company. When he wanted to read The Iliad and was two seconds away from snapping at the kneecaps of the next adult who told him it was too _advanced_ for him.

But Laura would come home with everyone else at the end of the school day and Derek had, eventually, found a safe harbour in Uncle Peter.

So he hadn't minded. He hadn't been able to understand why everyone else did.

And then Uncle Peter had sat him down and had a long conversation with him about Going Feral. "There is a duality to our species, Derek," he'd said softly, "that we cannot disregard. We are as human as we are wolf. If we lost sight of our wolf, our body would die. If we lost sight of our humanity, our soul would die. Do you understand?"

Derek had nodded.

It had taken weeks of pushing himself to maintain an un-shifted state for more than an hour at a time. Months to maintain it for the whole day. And then he'd had to train himself out of shifting whenever he was surprised or agitated or upset.

Laura and Peter had helped him as a matter of course. Henley had gotten herself involved in her interfering way. And with Henley came Ben-J.

Three of them would run through the forest, dodging traps, crossing streams, evading the other three, all while maintaining human. Sometimes the numbers were different or one of them would ask another packmate with fresh eyes to play in their place.

But they'd always end up here, by the clearest waters of the Sufrira.

Helena-Mae had judged him civilian-ready at ten.

When hitting puberty had put a strain on his control, he'd aimed for the basketball team. A means-to-an-end goal. Achieving it meant that he could play a sport without slipping, meant that he'd be okay. After he'd managed to get the go-ahead from Helena-Mae and had played two games with perfect averageness, the forays into the woods gradually came to an end.

Uncle Peter had finishing college, then work. Laura had Alpha training. Henley got bored. And with Henley went Ben-J.

Derek goes to the river without them. When he is here, he can balance on the precipice between human and animal, never falling in either direction. He can find a middle-ground and live in it, for a while.

"You're brooding," Philip says into his solitude.

Derek glances up at Philip, then looks pointedly at the textbook in front of him, the spiral notebook in his lap actively being used to take notes. He looks back to his older brother, eyebrows raised.

Philip grins merrily and produces a piece of candy. "Chocolate for your thoughts?"

Derek glares. He has never in his life enjoyed the chemical, cloying taste of chocolate. He is, actually, studying. And if he had been in any measure brooding, that's his own business. "No," he says.

Philip laughs good-naturedly like he'd been expecting that and unwraps the candy for himself. He considers Derek for a moment. "You worried about Laura going away to NYU?"

Derek's fangs drop behind his lips, his claws unsheathe, his eyes flash. _Yes,_ he is worried. They have never been so far apart from each other. Mom doesn't even want her to go, had tried to get her to accept Beacon Hills University like everybody else. But Laura had been adamant, had promised new Pack relations and a better future for them, had fought for it like the Alpha she would one day become. And besides, she had said, how was she supposed to know how to live outside of her mother's shadow if she was never allowed out from under it?

Derek understands why she is doing this, why she has to do this. She's been discussing it with him and Uncle Peter for _years._ Derek hates it, but he understands.

He still has two months left before she leaves. He's been trying not to think about it.

Growling, he begins packing up his things.

"Woah, hey," Philip says. "Wait. Just wait."

Derek pauses with his open backpack in one hand and his books in the other. He stares at Philip expectantly. Philip grimaces.

"I didn't mean to upset you, okay? But I—. You're closer to Laura than any of us, Derek. I was just wondering if you could talk to her. She really shouldn't be leaving—"

Derek shoves his books into his backpack, zips it, and snarls. Keeps his teeth bared as he's walking away.

Philip tries to call him back. Derek ignores him.

* * *

Derek opts to walk to school, not something he can usually get away with under Helena-Mae's hawk-eyed nurses. But there's been another hiccup in the natural order of things.

From the small tidbits he'd picked up wading through the breakfast crowd to grab his packed lunch from the kitchen, there'd been a Kanima, a family murdered, and some small charter of Hunters that'd met their brutal demise beneath a steel bat and a flourish of politics. He waits until the usual chauffeurs are all distracted by rowdy or gossipy kids and slips away without his assigned ride.

Too much trouble, he doesn't feel like talking to anyone else today.

He takes the shortcut through the Preserve, away from the road, that will carry him to the lacrosse field. It's neatly webbed with enough small riverbeds and stepping stones for Derek to both hide his scent and his tracks.

This is not the first time he's done this and gotten away with it. No one wants to be the one to tell Helena-Mae that they've fucked up, especially not with him.

Derek's control may have vastly improved, but everyone knows that he was years behind the rest. Sometimes he feels as if they're all watching him, waiting for that last thread to snap, waiting for him to _lose it._

And soon one of the only people in his Pack who doesn't look at him like that will be gone, won't she?

Derek inhales deeply, harshly. He sifts through the wealth of scents the Preserve has to offer and categorizes them in his head. He practices walking as quickly and soundlessly as possible — without shifting. He passes the time, distracts himself.

When he gets to the school he's still human.

He pats himself on the back.

* * *

BHHS's hallways are overbright and linoleum-sticky, they latch onto sound in a way no other building could ever emulate.

He has math when Paige has music. He can't hear her cello unless he concentrates. He'd forced himself to stop listening a few weeks after they broke up.

He still loves her, he thinks, although not as profoundly. And he's grateful to her, that she doesn't look at him like he's a monster the way he'd expected her to. But she couldn't forgive him for trying to make that choice for her. He put her in a lot of danger, she could've died, and he never said a thing.

They're not friends. Not because they didn't want to be, but they drifted apart.

It happens.

It's nearly the end of the term. Derek likes to think he's gotten over it, but it's hard to move on when everyone knows (almost) everything and you're stuck there knowing more than most simply because you can _smell_ it.

He doesn't even want to think about seeing someone else yet. Too afraid he'll screw it up, screw them over. It isn't worth it. Laura's always saying he has time, but it doesn't feel like it. It feels like the world is going to end in two months, when Laura leaves. Like it'll just stop spinning.

Henley snatches him up at lunch and drags him out into the Preserve.

"What," he says.

"I don't like that look on your face," she says. "I kinda want to punch it off you."

He scowls at her.

"Yeah, see, close. But no cigar. Catch a deer with me. That always makes you feel better."

He narrows his eyes.

She grins, a little madly, and then takes off running through the trees. His packed lunch, which she must've nicked without him noticing, lands in a creek with a soft plop. Derek roars and runs after her.

She cackles.

They take down a stag together, wash in the river when they've put away their desire for eating, and go back to class soaking wet. But Derek does feel better. He'll take Henley to a horror movie later, as thanks.

* * *

Derek and Laura sit across from each other in the parallel velvet green sofas in Uncle Peter's study after dinner. Uncle Peter isn't home yet, so they're doing for him what he's always done for them. They're waiting.

"I don't want you to go," he says, helplessly.

She shuts her book with a sigh. "Derek."

"I know," he says.

Laura watches him for a long, hard moment and then crosses the room to sit at his feet. She folds her hands on his knees and rests her chin on them. "You know how Uncle Peter's treated." Her words are soft and secretive. "You remember what happened to Aunt Shy. To Cahya and Adam and Mo. We're the only Pack in our region that still—. I have to change it. You know that."

"Yes," he says. He does. 

He _does._

"This is the first step," Laura says, like she always does. He could mouth the words along with her he's heard them so many times. "They need to know I'm going to be different. That I'm not going to be like Mom."

Derek swallows. His eyes burn.

"I wish," he says, and nothing else. Laura knows, too. He loves Mom, but he sometimes wishes she were more like Laura. He wishes nothing bad had ever happened to Aunt Shy, to Cahya or anyone else. He wishes his Pack were—a little kinder. He wishes Laura didn't have to leave.

"If only the world ran on wishing," she smiles, tender and sad.

He nods, vision blurry, and bends down to let his tears fall onto her hair.

Derek goes back to doing his homework and Laura goes back to The Master and Margarita. She laughs occasionally, at the comments Derek or Peter has left in the margins, and speaks a few of her rambling thoughts into the bittersweet air. Derek doesn't ask for help with his homework and she doesn't offer it. He likes the challenge, whenever it _is_ a challenge, and it very often isn't.

When he finishes, he joins her in reading. Convinces her to have conversations with him on the gilded pages in pen.

"It's a _collector's edition,"_ she laments, but does it anyway.

Uncle Peter doesn't join them until well past midnight. His familiar scent of providence-bidden gales and mountain statues dressed in moss is mist-laden and dreary with fatigue. "You both," he says smoothly, "should be in bed."

Derek lofts a _right back at you_ look at him. Uncle Peter rolls his eyes and relaxes into the sofa across from theirs. His suit seems fresh-pressed even though he must've been in it for hours, his shoes are more liquid shine than black patent leather, and there's not a hair out of place on his head. _Dapper._ Must've been dealing with the Mayor and her delinquent son again.

"Ugh," Laura says, closing the book they'd been sharing. "Fine. But if we're going, you're going."

Uncle Peter smirks at her, "My, my, Alpha Heir. Am I to bend the knee so soon? If I start taking orders from you _now,_ whatever shall become of me?"

Laura snorts, tossing The Master and Margarita onto the coffee table between them as she stands. "Well, you'll stop looking like a racoon for one."

This elicits a melodramatic gasp. "A _racoon?"_

"Oh, by all the moon's forgiving light, Uncle Peter." She moves to drag Uncle Peter up, determined to get him into bed as well.

He goes along with it amicably, but he turns to her when they reach his door and whispers into her ear before kissing her on the cheek, "I do hope you're more tactful around the others, pup. We do not serve the heathen Gods, here."

"I know, Uncle Peter," she murmurs. And with kind intention, he sweeps the dark curls back from her face to study her mettle, nods his approval, and retires gracefully into his rooms. Laura releases a slow breath.

Derek is terrible with words and worse with reassurances. He places his hand in hers and squeezes, a reminder that he's there. She squeezes back, grins at him, and carts him off to bed next.

He's tired, but part of him is childishly rebelling against the prospect of sleep.

He doesn't want to see her again, that wispy nightmare vision he can barely retain: blonde curls, candy-apple lips, cruel eyes.

But the moment he curls up beneath his blankets, she comes for him. And he remembers the taste of her, even though it's repulsive and he doesn't want to. And she rakes her claws into him. And she drags him _down._

"Come on, sweetie," she purrs. "Show me what you got."

* * *

Derek wakes up and for a moment feels lost and utterly alone.

His stomach trembles liquidly. He needs to run, he needs to get out of here, he needs the sky and the earth. He shifts and he yanks his window open, escaping the confines of his room in a leap and rolling through the grass clumsily. His lungs feel as if someone has them in chains and has imprisoned them far away, his thoughts are dizzy and shivering in the cold light of morning.

He thinks he can hear singing — it beckons him. It's _safety,_ he is certain, he can hear it.

So he follows it, urgently.

The world is flowing around him like water, and he can feel the dry dirt between his fingers, his toes. Is he crawling?

The song is so beautiful. He needs to go to it. It will tell him what to do, it will save him, it is a Mother's lullaby after weeks of nightmares.

But something catches him by the scruff of his neck — a hand. He growls from the depths of his chest and swings his maw toward the offender, biting. The coppery taste of blood bursts across his tongue.

_"Derek!"_

And he can see her now, his nightmare. Her mean eyes, and her snapping voice like she's calling a dog to heel. He doesn't want her to touch him. He doesn't want her anywhere near him ever again. The song is safe, it will protect him. If he goes to it, he'll forget her, he'll wake up, he'll be held in warm arms and be okay again.

Derek runs.


	17. Weathering The Storm (Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are some of the most brilliant people ever, and I hope this chapter reaches you in good health. _soulhugs~_
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Nightmares, Mild Body Horror, Drama & Violence, Mild Gore, (Character Death?? -Ish? But not really? Nobody actually dies?)

There is fire, again. It raves and heaves around a great tree.

Their last stop.

Peter is on the ground. His back is broken. He is all agony. Beside him is Mischief, hands sleekly oiled with the darkest scarlet. A stomach wound. He won't last long, though he's stubbornly refusing to believe it.

 _Third time's the charm,_ keeps ringing in his ears. But it wasn't. Even if Peter survives here, the world has well and truly gone to the dogs. There's no coming back from this. How long will he have until the air runs out altogether? Until the last of the trees dies? All the bees are already gone.

There is a way to fix this.

Behind his eyelids he sees Stiles beneath him, holding very still as Peter carved the necessary runes into his skin. He sees Stiles' face go red and furious once he realized what the last ingredient would be: sacrificing your greatest love. He hears, "Guess it was all a fucking waste, then."

But Peter knows. He might've believed it was because he was the last one left, but he'd felt one half of an endlessly reaching packbond long before this vile tumult began, he'd heard the skipping of Stiles' heart, smelt the flush of wild, fresh lavender blooming in the ancient libraries of his scent. It is strange and Peter had found it amusing once, that leverage so easily offered him; he finds it bewildering now. What on earth had he done to achieve that level of sentiment?

Part of him half regrets that he can no longer properly appreciate it.

He has healed enough to turn over, prop himself above Mischief's prone body. He is pale, sweat pearling on his forehead and glittering in the firelight.

"Maybe," Peter rasps, taking one of Stiles' hands. Stiles' brows furrow. He is colder than he should be, trembling. "In another life," and Peter wraps that hand in his claws, holds it close to his chest. "I could love you back."

There is a crack and a squelch and Peter thinks he can see Death coming for him. She looks like Laura. Good.

"Wh-what?" Stiles doesn't understand at first. Not until he can feel, viscerally, Peter's heart beating. His face cracks open with anguished horror. "No, no, no," tremulously, pantingly. He tries to pull away but that only makes it worse. He becomes angry: "I don't need you to love me back, you _idiot!_ I just need you to be here! I just need you—"

His voice breaks and tapers. It's soft and helpless when it returns: "I need you. I can't lose you, too. Please," he begs. "Please. _Please."_

Peter lays his forehead against Stiles'. A sign of weakness he is disgusted by, but this boy is losing the one thing he loves most in the world, so he will allow it.

He says: "Close your eyes, Stiles."

Stiles releases a wilting sob.

"Oh, Uncle Peter," he hears Laura's ghost sigh against his ear.

And the black mists of Death descend upon him.

Peter——wakes up, wretched and choking on a soundless scream. He grasps at his chest but there is no wound, no blood. He is alive. He is fine.

The nightmare does its' level best to escape his memory, now it's done. And he can't waste time keeping it, piecing himself back together from it, because something's happening. Something's wrong.

His packbonds feel dim and brittle. There are unfamiliar scents contaminating the house. Peter's snarling even as he shakes, ripping himself out of his bed.

Outside of his rooms, it's chaos.

There are wolves, literal _wolves_ snapping at each other and gouging their claws into one another. All of them trying to get outside faster than the rest, a deadly race. And they turn on him. And their eyes flash like little suns. And he hears the faint traces of a song on the wind.

And he thinks, _Siren._

* * *

None of the wolves, none of his _Pack,_ will listen to reason. They rush at him in clusters and chase him out of the house.

He's still running, still trying to comprehend why the Siren's song isn't affecting _him,_ when he sees Derek hurtle himself out of his window. He changes shape mid-air, his arms become forelegs and his mouth elongates, he careens to the ground an onyx beast with gold-bright eyes.

"Derek," Peter breathes.

He doesn't know who anyone else is, the scent of fur and heat and wild-magic too strong to discern individual character. But he can see his nephew, galloping after the Siren's call.

"Derek!" Peter shouts, and runs after him. Grasps at air and nothing until he's got fur snarled in his fist. Derek growls some deep-bellied, feral thing and rounds on him. Fangs tear Peter's wrist to ribbons and he is forced to let go with an unwilling cry.

_"Derek!"_

But it's no use, Derek is already shredding through the trees. And he is not the only one. There are others, so many others, an unforgiving stampede of them thundering out into the Preserve.

A fucking _Siren?_ That is an old, old monster. That is something that died out in the earliest centuries of the christian calendar.

His chest burns, has been burning since he woke up. He had assumed it was an echo of his nightmare, but the feeling intensifies now, and he looks down.

His gifted pendant _glows._

Time seems to stall.

His breath shallows. A Siren isn't something you can fight and kill, or if it is all the helpful information has been lost to time. A Siren, like a storm, is to be weathered. Peter's heartbeat thuds quietly in the distance.

... He can still catch up to Derek, if he's fast enough.

* * *

Stiles is sitting on the cool stone floor of the creche, leaning back against Roscoe, watching Elodie splash another child with water from the heart-spring. There's squealing and chasing and laughter, and Stiles smiles beneath his mask.

Parents and designated minders supervise as they make or darn clothes, do laundry, and other menial tasks. The wary, side-long glances they used to give Elodie have finally begun to lessen.

This is maybe the thirteenth time he's accidentally teleported to the Giliberto compound instead of back to his apartment while injured — three broken ribs and a concussion. Julia's grounded him. Not that she necessarily has the authority to do that, but he can sense a teeming beneath the surface, the boiling of rebellion. He wants to be here when it happens, wants to make sure no one sways Kali toward the fate he's been trying to keep her from.

She made the right choice with Elodie, and the more he learns about the culture the Giliberto Pack is entrenched in, the more hope he has for her. For the continued survival of everyone here.

He hears a faint jingle in the back of his head. _Peter._

He's learned to half ignore it, the little alarm he left on the amulet he'd given Peter after Corinne. Peter is the Hale Pack's Left Hand — minor threats are to be expected, and God knows the man can handle himself.

But the jingle gets louder. And louder. And _louder._

Stiles' heart jumps into his throat, and he and Roscoe promptly vanish from the comfort of the creche.

(Julia, who had been giving a pregnant packmate a safe-for-baby tonic to help with her aches and her morning sickness, looks back at the shadow under which the two had been lounging just in time to see them flicker away.

Her eyes sink shut as she whispers a prayer for him, that he may not fall under the moon's shadow this day.)

* * *

Derek flies from his nightmare in a frenzied terror, but she is faster than him. Her body crashes into his and he keens. The song is so far away — she's bearing down on his back and crushing him into the earth, immobilizing. Something thin and cold and unfamiliar drapes over his throat, she's going to _kill him—_

Colours waver, solidify. The whole world tilts back onto its' axis and Derek's head _whirls._

Fur recedes, paws grow fingers, the curtain of delirium lifts as sweetly as if it were never there at all.

 _What?_ Derek blinks and his eyelashes catch on foliage. He eases himself up slowly, his gaze circling his surroundings in utter confusion until they land on—Uncle Peter?

"Derek," Uncle Peter rasps through a mouthful of fangs that are much longer and sharper than they should be. "I'm going to need you to run."

Uncle Peter's body shimmers, contorts. Canine lips pull over gleaming teeth in a snarl. Tailbone lengthens to tail. Creamy fur ripples over ribs.

Derek stares, wide-eyed and uncomprehending. The wolf lunges for him and takes a meaty chunk out of his leg before he can gather his wits enough to scramble away. He sees six, seven, eight more wolves flickering through the trees, can hear them howling and sprinting past.

A long stream of curse words rattles hazily through his hollow, buzzed-out brain. Derek, for lack of anything reasonable or better, climbs a tree. Uncle Peter's pendant tinkles beneath his collarbone, the metal growing hotter.

The wolf that was Uncle Peter jumps and snaps at him but can neither reach him nor climb. He growls unhappily, hackles raised. A haunting, alien song sweeps through the wood. The wolf stills, ears twitching, and turns toward the sound.

Derek still feels as if he is coming out of a dream when there is a rustle, a wing-beat heart, a voice that says sharply: "Peter."

Even the song's allure cannot keep the wolf from snapping to attention. A stranger stands there, gas-mask covering the lower half of his face, steel bat in one hand, fiery eyes trained on Uncle Peter. And Derek has heard enough of the stories to know who this is.

_Mischief._

* * *

Stiles has been dealing with a feral Peter for as long as he's known him, never had the opportunity to know him any other way.

Until here — until time-travel and defying the apocalyptic future he'd had to endure. But he's been avoiding it, in a way, because this Peter is not the Peter he knew and never will be. The psychotic man he'd been stupid enough to fall in love with is dead.

Stiles can hear a Siren's call on the wind. 

Peter stands before him, a wolf in body and mind. Feral. And Stiles has had years of experience with a feral Peter.

He leaps back when Peter lunges, throws mountain ash over his head and Wills it into a circle around them. A nice little fenced-in arena that allows Stiles to narrow his focus: nothing can get in, nothing can get out, they can only hurt each other here. He sends Roscoe off scouting as he rolls away from another attack, and then he dives for Peter's flank, digs his nails in.

Mountain ash is good for more than creating boundaries, especially if you're a Spark. It obeys the Spark's Will. So making a nail-lacquer out of it and meditating on being able to inflict lasting wounds against werewolves? Remarkably useful. Nervously chewing those nails raw whenever the gas mask has to come off? Dumb as shit.

Stiles' scratches stay, but they're needle-thin and aggravating enough that Stiles would sigh at himself — except Peter's already rearing back with open maw. Stiles twists away, a flash of pain as his ribs protest, and Peter's teeth snag the back of his knee.

"Mother _fucker."_ Stiles knocks Peter's snout with the butt of his bat, and Peter dances back with a yelping whimper. He kicks out to drive Peter farther back and grabs a clump of mountain ash from the boundary, Willing it over his injury.

Peter comes for him with a vengeance; claws drag down his side. Stiles' broken ribs scream and he screams with them. Jerks his knee under the wolf's chin. Peter stumbles. Stiles tosses his bat far aside. Clank-thud, and Peter's attention shifts minutely. Stiles jumps him. Peter snarls, harsh and loud.

Stiles braces his legs on either side of Peter's frame and shoves his forearm inside the wolf's mouth by way of temporary muzzle. Peter's fangs sink into muscle and he is electrified with agony, it crackles through his ribs and down his leg. Stiles struggles to push it down. "Shh," he calms as Peter thrashes and bucks. He nuzzles his face into Peter's neck. "Three things cannot long be hidden. The sun. The moon. And the truth."

He takes a breath, bones scraping against lungs. Again, he murmurs: "Three things cannot long be hidden. The sun. The moon. And the truth." Over and over and over again. Meditative, until the words become meaningless.

A chant that Peter and Talia's parents taught them, that Talia tried to teach her own children. Peter never liked it, never believed it, but his mother used to hold him and whisper it into his ear just like this. The words themselves never helped, Peter had told Stiles once, but _that_ had.

Stiles has been here before, mantled around Peter and half desperate, clinging to repetition and the memory that this has worked before. The first time, he'd genuinely thought Peter was going to kill him — but his Pack had still been alive, then. And they'd saved him. Brought Peter back.

Stiles lets the familiarity drown him. Exists only here. The words spin him out and get slower, more restive, as Peter begins to tire himself out.

He senses someone infringing upon his boundary and, on instinct, glances. Derek Hale. Young, vulnerable, sixteen-year-old Derek Hale.

Freaky.

He's Beta-shifted and staring at the scene with intense consternation. Stiles swallows.

Then Derek takes a bracing breath, crouches down, closer. "Three things cannot long be hidden," he says lowly. Peter spasms, stills. "The sun, the moon, and the truth."

Stiles closes his eyes as the powerful animal underneath him finally begins to yield. Their voices join together, soft and lulling. Peter goes down.

This is another timeline, Stiles reminds himself. Another Peter. Stiles is barely more than an acquaintance. It _makes sense_ that he alone wouldn't be enough.

Seeing as the boundary is currently the only barrier between Peter and the Siren's call, simply releasing it would be a bad idea. Stiles looks at Derek, unfaltering, and Wills the boundary to let him pass.

Derek's part in their chant stutters. His eyebrows twitch together. He carefully steps over the line with an implacable, constipated sort of expression on his face and rejoins the harmony as if he never left it.

Peter drinks in Derek's presence greedily, then slumberously, and Stiles decides it's pretty much now or never.

"Derek," he says.

Derek's eyes jerk to his and his mouth clicks shut. Stiles gives it a moment. Peter stays down. Okay.

He knows from experience how badly this will end if either of them makes any sudden moves — if they show any doubt. It both is and isn't a gamble. But Stiles has faith in Peter. He can only hope Derek does, too.

"Stay calm," Stiles warns. "And... _trust him."_

Derek's breath halts, for a moment. Then he nods, all grim determination.

Slowly, _slowly,_ Stiles extracts his arm from the wolf's mouth. He grits his teeth and catches every agonized sound in his throat. Involuntary tears escape his eyes and tumble down his gas-mask. He releases a shaky breath when his mangled limb is once again his own.

Derek's eyes wince, his fingers flex, but he remains quiet and still.

Peter stays down.

Stiles slides off his back and tries to exude the calmest aura he possibly can.

Peter's attention flicks briefly to Stiles before it returns to Derek. He blinks lazily and picks himself up off the ground, takes a step toward his nephew.

Stiles cradles his arm and lets it happen. Derek _needs_ to react well, but Stiles can't consider what will happen if he doesn't. He must Believe that Peter is alright now, or he won't be.

Derek doesn't even hold his breath, he simply watches Peter stoically as he walks forward and leans in to sniff at Derek's face. Any sting Stiles might've felt at being ignored is instantly swallowed by a swell of affectionate joy and pride.

Peter's nose rubs Derek's cheek before he closes in to nuzzle Derek's throat, and Derek shuts his eyes with a soft sigh and _tilts his head back._

Stiles' heart practically soars. And in this moment everything feels worth it. Derek and Peter are Pack, they're family, they're clean and they're whole and as soon as Stiles _beats the shit_ out of that Siren, they're going to be okay. 

They're going to be fucking perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed!!! Love, love, love


	18. Weathering The Storm (Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter this week, folks. I hope you all enjoy and I hope you're all staying safe and sane out there!!! You're all the best readers anyone could ask for, and I appreciate every kudos + comment immensely. (Thank you all for being patient on my replying to comments, too, xoxoxo)
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Canon-Typical Violence, Mild Gore, Stiles Has PTSD & Other Issues; Emetophobes beware, a thing happens

Stiles does some _very_ rudimentary first-aid on himself while Peter's busy drowning Derek in his scent. 

He slaps mountain ash on every significant wound and concentrates hard enough to make his brain feel like it's being squeezed out of his head through a flower stem. All the black grain in direct contact with his masticated and/or shredded flesh heats up exponentially. Stiles clenches his teeth through the pain, exhales harshly when it's done.

Derek is staring at him, alarmed. Peter is curled up in Derek's lap and being petted, summarily ignoring his surroundings.

"Quick and dirty cauterization," Stiles explains, twinkling his fingers. "Don't have time for stitches right now."

A half-disturbed question blooms on Derek's face.

Stiles sighs and crouches down in front of him, meeting his eyes dead-on. There's a devastated, panicky itch in roiling beneath his consciousness. Stiles ignores it. "I don't know how this happened, but I'm going to take care of it."

He dares to sweep his less gory hand through Peter's fur. Peter only blinks at him, languid, patient, implacable. Stiles pulls away when the sense-memory of dread and grief and a heart beating bloody against his palm starts to take over.

Derek's watching him with an expression that Stiles can't decipher by virtue of there being too _much_ in it. He is used to deeply suspicious, blank, or very minute from Derek. Baby Derek's face is an entire book instead of a single sentence and Stiles can't figure it out at all.

His heart clenches sharply in his chest. A stranger and a ghost all in one, this boy.

"You can cross the boundary if you want to. You aren't trapped here," he says, hushed but firm. "But it's the only thing keeping Peter from hearing the Siren's call right now, and it _will_ keep you safe while you're in it; you have my word."

He straightens, says with a brightness that he doesn't feel, "See you in a minute," and sprints toward the source of the Siren's pulsing wild-magic.

* * *

The closer Stiles gets to the Siren the more unease pools behind his breastbone.

The telluric currents below his feet are behaving so much like they had in the before-after that he pushes his gas-mask tighter against his face, a bruising reassurance. White noise cackles precariously up his spine.

Stiles shoves it all down with an enormous force of will and _keeps moving._

The lofty sky is brazenly lit, and that part of Stiles stuck forever in the before-after is screaming for cover. There won't be any shells, here, he tries to remind himself. There won't be any outposts or sentries. He needs to deal with what's happening _now._

The Siren's call resounds off of the thick, clustered tree-trunks, scrapes and rattles through the winter-barren canopy. None of the wolves have actually gotten this far — lost in their feral confusion and bloodlust. Mercy be to anyone who'd had the misfortune of wandering around the Preserve today.

Stiles greets his meticulously forged, delicate, _broken_ wards with a kind of buzzing blankness.

But there is no fire gulping down the Nemeton in liquid golden flame. There is just the Siren, Its' legs planted in roots, Its' arms digging into the vulnerable ringed wood atop the stump. It is a long, lissome sliver of colourless humanoid. Its' mouth is a blot of deep, endless void, a glimpse into a corner of the barest and most horrifying cosmos. 

Damn.

It is not paying attention to Its' surroundings, but Stiles won't go unnoticed if he paces any closer. He didn't bring his gun, but his bat is with him (his bat is _always_ with him). He's got mountain ash and mistletoe and his amulets and charms.

Now would be an absolutely brilliant time to have a molotov cocktail in his arsenal. Too bad he hadn't come prepared.

Nevermind.

When in doubt — mistletoe. _Always_ mistletoe.

He grabs a handful from one of his various pockets and hurls it in the direction of the Siren's creepy-ass mouth.

The Siren gags and chokes and turns gooey, gelatin eyes on him. It _shrieks,_ a high sound that perforates the eardrums and drives into the brain like it is not an organ but glass to be shattered.

Stiles covers his ears, scrunches up his eyes, and gasps in _ten thousand times worse than any migraine he's ever had godfuckingdamnitalltohell_ agony. His legs strive valiantly not to buckle. Stiles Wills his mountain ash to play banshee-earplugs, something he'd had to do almost daily before Lydia had died. His head's still ringing, but the pain and the sound causing it has been muted, thank fuck.

He shakes it off as best he can and rushes toward the Siren, baseball bat swinging. His stroke goes wide, still seeing double from Its' attack.

The Siren does a bone-chilling approximation of a laugh — Its' being far too close for comfort. Long, eel-like fingers reach vengefully out for him, but Stiles ducks down and rolls away. He comes up nauseatingly dizzy, with attention-seeking ribs and a swoop-throbbing head.

The Siren shrieks again, but the tone is different this time. Stiles' very marrow trembles and ripples with the sound, the sustaining liquids within him lagging dangerously.

Stiles' heart gives a lame, deadened thump.

The Siren's gelatinous eyes glitter victoriously.

But Stiles cannot die here.

Eyes like freshly fallen snow, he remembers. A calm that always bordered on dangerous, a consideration that always bordered on homicidal. Peter died to get him here. So that the world wouldn't turn into what they had seen it turn into. So that his Pack could have a chance.

And Derek and Peter are together, here. They're alive and they're _family._ The Hale Pack is out there, waiting for him to get this shit done, so they can be sane and safe again.

Stiles' heart, in a stranglehold of torturous soundwaves, struggles. His muscles struggle. Every fuckdamn organ struggles.

The Siren is still lording above the Nemeton.

There is scar tissue within Stiles, thick and impregnable and very like a cemetery, where all his packbonds used to be. He's an expert at ignoring it, glossing over it, holding his breath whenever he has to pass it by.

He'd been planning on convincing the Hale Pack to assign their own Warden, when the Nemeton had grown from seedling to sapling. But he's running out of time — and he _cannot die here._

So he _reaches,_ with every aspect of himself that he'd shut down after he'd landed in this timeline. He gouges through the scar tissue, through the toxicity of grief and long-survived terror, and he extends the part of his soul shaped by Pack to the Nemeton.

The Nemeton is confused, curious, thirsty. Stiles is desperate. The Nemeton remembers him and what he has already done for them. The Nemeton accepts.

And a tremendous, awing packbond flares to life.

Stiles' body remembers itself with the sharp tingle of a _very_ fucking close call, every muscle waking from what would have been a dead-sleep all at once. Stiles breathes. And Stiles _moves._

The Siren's lips are still parted to shriek. It is still just a touch too close. And with Its' power-source suddenly cut off, It is entirely too overwhelmed by surprise when Stiles leaps.

Clenched in his hand, mountain ash and mistletoe. He shoves the granular cocktail into the Siren's mouth and Wills death to come for It with all his might.

The Siren wails. Painful. Then pitiful. Then peaceful, as silence finally reigns.

The Siren is dead.

The Nemeton—— _eats It._

Stiles yanks his mask to his forehead for long enough to vomit into the nearest bush before haphazardly wiping his mouth and replacing it.

The Nemeton's bond curls with vague disgust.

Stiles spares the stump an exhausted, incredulous glance. Ugh. He will—deal with that later.

He'll deal with a lot of things later.

The Hales — priority one: check in with the Hales.

* * *

Stiles finds a few naked, shell-shocked werewolves on his way to the Hale house and he sends them ahead of him with the good news and some water. He knows they'll be able to avoid civilians on their own, being once again in their right minds.

But some of them are drenched in blood, panting, shaking. They are blue-eyed now. All he can do is tell them he is sorry, and that the danger has passed. "Go home," he says, over their weeping protests. "Go home."

He has to believe Talia will not abandon them, just as she did not abandon Derek.

His boundary, when he gets to it, is deserted. Stiles Wills the ring of mountain ash into its designated pocket and trudges onward.

The sun beats down on him. His injuries whine. Stiles sighs and keeps moving.

When the Hale house is in sight he sees him: Peter. He and Derek seem to be ushering the recovered masses inside. And then Peter must catch his scent because his gaze flickers up and——

Eyes like freshly fallen snow, even after every other packbond had blackened in death.

All conscious thought whites out. Stiles _runs._ Stiles runs until his arms can clasp around Peter's neck, and a surprised body is taking his weight.

That part of himself that knows only Pack, that had been locked away behind dense scar tissue, reaches through what is now a gaping wound. Reaches and reaches and _reaches,_ like it always used to, even though there had only ever been an unreceptive hollow on the other side.

But this Peter is not his Peter.

And the packbond catches on a willing soul — sinks _home._

Stiles' fingernails dig into Peter's shoulders as he gasps out a soft, wretched sob. His legs give. Peter catches him, an arm wrapped around his waist, a hand gathering his hair at the base of his skull. Stiles' eyelids tremble, his cheeks feel wet and cold even under his mask.

"S-sorry," he whispers tremulously.

"It's alright," Peter says, low and warm. "I've got you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _soulhugs~_


	19. The Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Wherein things get worse before they get better_
> 
> I'm going to take the moment here to promise you that there will, no matter what, be a happy ending to this fic. I pinky-swear.
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Unnamed Character Death, Mild Gore, the Bigotry & Prejudice is startin' to get less subtle, Guilt & Consequences, Mostly Unintentional Self-Inflicted Wounds

### 18.5: Chris & Roscoe

When wolves start spilling out of the Preserve to maim innocent civilians unprovoked, Chris is given strict orders to _do whatever needs to be done._

So he brings out every weapon in his arsenal.

He puts up ultrasonic emitters and tripwires connected to flash grenades around the forest's border, he appraises Sheriff Stilinski of the situation, and he leads a cadre of his Hunters into the fray to figure out what the _hell_ is going on.

They find hostile forces in several small packs of feral wolves. Actual, literal, _animal_ wolves — who are quite possibly also werewolves. Full-shifting is supposed to be incredibly rare, but stranger things have happened.

Chris and his people go their separate ways: eight teams of four men, standard graph sweep, civilian rescue, and non-lethal containment protocols.

Considering they're still very unclear on the details, Chris attempts to keep the treaty prevalent in all of their minds. But Hagen and Tanner are looking mulish and violent and he grimly wonders how many of his men will remain on their leashes in the face of this.

A year and a half of peace.

The wolves wear the eyes of werewolves, are bigger, stronger, and faster than any normal animal would be. Are too many not to be a threat.

He sticks to tranq darts and cornering tactics until he finds one of the wolves ripping into the stomach of a hiker. Her golden fur is matted with crimson and she's too busy gulping down all the blood and inward guts of the now-dead man to notice him.

 _Rabid,_ whispers the ghost of his father, and Chris brings his crossbow up.

But some enormous beast barrels into him before he can let the wolfsbane-oiled arrow fly. He thinks he's going to have to fight, that he's been caught unawares by another wolf, but the big black dog pins him down and stares at him with terrifyingly intelligent lamplight eyes.

 _Be better,_ he remembers, of Mischief. How the kid's voice had dipped somewhere between a demand and a plea. _You've seen their humanity, now, haven't you? So be **better.**_

And he remembers how his wife had fumed, how she's been trying to buck the treaty ever since they signed it, how this will probably be the perfect opportunity for her.

How it's shaping up to be the perfect opportunity for Hagen and Tanner.

A year and a half of peace.

The dog blinks at him and barks, once, like an engine revving. Then it leaps away to tackle the now growling, attention-caught wolf.

The wolf goes down in a matter of seconds.

The dog lifts the wolf up by the scruff of its' neck like it's some misbehaving pup instead of a ferocious, deadly animal. 

Chris considers the fallen hiker unhappily for a moment before he follows.

The dog leads him to a pile of unconscious wolves gathered delicately in a clearing. It sets its' current catch down and sits on its' haunches to look at him.

It barks again, with an air of decently convincing intent.

"Yeah," Chris says concedingly, because working with a dog-shaped behemoth is probably the least of his problems right now, "alright."

(And when the wolves return to human, Chris, his cadre of Hunters, and a big black dog lead the largest group of Siren-affected werewolves back home. The 'weres can't give much of a sitrep beyond: a) they have no idea what's happened, and b) they all feel as if they've just woken from a bad dream.

Talia, Chris decides. He needs to talk to Talia.)

* * *

### 19: The Aftermath

All of the blue-eyed wolves have been segregated into a separate room.

Laura is among them. 

_Laura._

Talia and Helena-Mae are doing a headcount, making sure everyone is well inside and as alright as they can be. Róisín ranks amongst the blue-eyed as well, and is therefore sequestered. The last leg of the curadh gan chloí is staring malevolently at the only person who, technically, has no right to be here.

Not a packmate, not an aggravated or worried or frothing at the mouth Argent.

Mischief.

Carrie bares her teeth, "Convenient, isn't it? You turning up _now."_

"Carrie," Peter says, eyes flashing, a warning.

The new packbond within him tightens inexplicably around his heart. He has never, in his life, had a packbond with someone outside of the Hale Pack. And of the bonds he has had, only Derek's and Laura's have ever been so bright, so warm, so easy to read in terms of emotion.

Empathic packbonds are rare, require a certain strength of connection that only incredibly intimate relationships posses.

Mischief is still - should still - be half a stranger to him.

Peter has barely met him twice before, and every story is just that: a _story._ The dreams are another matter altogether, hazy and easily forgotten, something he will have to inspect closer when he finds the time and not exactly something he feels he can put his trust in.

But the way that Mischief interacts with his wolf — the way Mischief had stepped into the ring with Peter while he was feral like it was a foregone conclusion that Peter would be able to _calm_ — the way he stands before them badly wounded for the second time _(by Peter's fault)_ with nothing but kind intention — the way Mischief's soul had reached out for his with so much urgency and devotion...

There had been no choice, but to let him in.

And, in his arms, Mischief had melted. Their packbond had surged to life and immediately latched onto the deepest depths of him, unafraid of whatever darkness might linger there, so overjoyed to _be._

Now, Mischief says, "No, I—." He sighs, "I came because Peter's amulet told me something was wrong, but the Siren might've actually been, a little bit, my fault. I was — I _have been_ trying to restore the Nemeton."

Carrie recoils. Peter's breath catches.

"I took every possible caution, the 'beacon' hasn't even been activated yet. But I was—so _fucking_ stupid. I should've told your Pack before I did _anything._ I just- I thought I had more time, and I'm so used to—"

 _Doing everything on my own,_ Mischief doesn't say, but Peter can almost hear it, the texture of it rippling across their bond. His voice and the line of his shoulders are all guilt.

"The Nemeton is none of your business!" Carrie's shifted now, heaving fury. "You shouldn't have been anywhere near it! Do you _realize_ the danger you've brought on our Pack with your—"

Peter is one more ill-tempered word away from putting a stop to this. _Violently._

Mischief and his packbond, both, are flinching back from the recriminations. The libraries in his scent have been pitched into the sea, ancient books tumbling from their shelves until every ink-curled letter has seeped out into the saltwater, red and decayed.

Derek's fuse is shorter than Peter's. He steps bodily in front of Mischief and releases a bone-chilling roar that halts Carrie's speech in its tracks.

 _"Derek!"_ Talia shouts, having come to check on the obviously mounting confrontation. Her eyes flash and her Alphahood snarls her voice into a barbed whip.

But it _doesn't work._

Derek, unaffected, remains glaring golden at Carrie. His claws dig into his palms, spilling gushing rivers of crimson through his fingers. A mountain conquering avalanche rumbles in the depths of his chest, vibrating through the open tilt of his throat, ringing off his sundering fangs and inspiring their party to remember that Derek has always, always been the most wolven of all of them. He was the one they feared would go true-feral, the one they thought they would lose to the wolf because there wasn't enough _human_ to last.

Peter steps forward to intervene but Talia shakes her head minutely, and Peter suffers the silent order — for now.

"Derek," Talia tries again, a command backed by wine-rich eyes. "You need to stop, honey."

Absolutely no reaction.

Mischief steps forward, curving down to lean his forehead between Derek's shoulderblades. He places his hands over Derek's, and nothing about him is afraid. "Where's Laura, Derek?" he asks quietly. "What does her heartbeat sound like? Listen. Just listen."

The rolling rock-crash thunder relaxes, hushes to a tricky landslide clatter.

Mischief pries Derek's hands open and laces their fingers together. The self-inflicted wounds begin to heal.

"She's safe, isn't she? Breathing. Nice and slow, Derek. Come on, nice and slow."

And Derek's scent, which had been a seething mass of molten gold and scathing water boiling over cracked, heat-hissing stone, cools to a simmer; the flesh-boiling metal at the bottom of the basin regains its' shape, its' shine. He returns to wishing well, to fresh moss and rippling clarity and coin-glitter hope.

"Hey, think you can squeeze my hands without hurting me? Please," Mischief murmurs. "Try."

And Derek's humanity washes over him so easily it's almost painful. He squeezes Mischief's hands, gently. Mischief huffs a small, fleeting thing; a soft-furred rabbit fleeing nimbly from a close snapping maw.

"There you are," he says, slipping his hands from Derek's to round him, eyes full of sunset graveyards but smiling anyway. "Hello."

Derek seems startled. Overwhelmed. (Peter knows the feeling.) He dips his head in a slight nod and Mischief, continuing his trend of making precisely zero sense, ruffles his hair.

"Dumbass," he says, all fondness. And then he turns toward a shock-still Talia and Carrie, muscles pliant, expression muted.

The oldest texts in the Hale library are written by their ancestors. They all state, a mantra, a litany, that their family's duty is to protect this land. To protect the Old Tree, the Sacred Grove, the Beacon, the Eleventh Lighthouse, the _Nemeton._ Peter has read the heartwrenching, grief-burdened accounts of what they had all presumed to be the death of that Nemeton. He knows how the Hale Pack's power has dwindled ever after, how they became both more vulnerable and less.

They were no longer strong enough to fight the monsters that they used to be faced with daily. But then, those monsters stopped coming. But then, _everything_ stopped coming.

The Faeries, Selkies, Kitsunes, Banshees, and 'weres.

... The Sirens.

Beacon Hills was no longer a haven. It no longer demanded so much of its guardians. And yet, here they all were, as if lying in wait.

There's an urgent, wailing desperation quivering through Mischief's packbond like a child railing at the unfairness of the world, sobbing in the darkness, abandoned — until tremendous resignation smothers it, smooths it out.

Mischief's gaze cuts briefly to his and Peter knows with a sudden, terrible certainty that Mischief isn't going to fight this.

"I apologize for my arrogance, Alpha Hale," Mischief says, serene desolation. "I should have warned your Pack, and the Argents, about what I was doing. I should have been more prepared for something like this to happen. But regrowing the Nemeton—needs to be done. I thought the wards that I left would be enough until—. But I was wrong. And your Pack has suffered for it."

Talia regards him in grim silence.

Mischief's shoulders are straight and uncowed, his head high. "If you wish to punish me for what I have done, I will accept it."

Derek's eyes fall shut in wretched understanding. The new packbond fluttering in Peter's chest winds deeper and tighter, sighing an emotion that Peter feels entirely undeserving of.

Peter wants to step in.

But the fact is, if Mischief is right and his meddling with the Nemeton is what caused this... He should have warned them. They might have been better prepared, or more understanding. If he had asked their permission first, or worked with them, there is a chance that they could've avoided this plight altogether.

His mistake has cost the lives of civilians. It has cost the innocence of over a fourth of their number. It has cost the innocence of Talia's own daughter and _Heir._

The matter is in his Alpha's hands. Peter can do nothing.

And their Alpha is ruthless: "I forbid you, Mischief, from ever setting foot near the Nemeton again. Whatever led you to believe that we would be better off if you restored it was obviously a mistake. The Nemeton is my Pack's duty, not yours. You are our... guest. If you step out of line again, you will become a stranger, and your life will become forfeit in the eyes of me and mine."

Mischief's heart is beating dangerously fast, he smells so much like brine and bloodshed that he's nearly unrecognizable. "Okay," he says, in a very small voice, and vanishes into thin air.

His packbond slinks low and deep, shivering and withered but still digging in like a stubborn burr, desperate to hold on.

Derek's pressing his knuckles to his chest and wincing across from him and — _ah._ Peter isn't the only one who's gained a new packmate today, is he?

"Peter," Talia says. "The Argents have called a meeting."

Peter nearly snarls at her. 

He understands why Talia did what she did. In fact, he's almost surprised she didn't sentence Mischief to worse.

But a dark, wild part of him is rebelling against this so violently he is sick with it.

He rolls his shoulders, swallows it down, and follows her to his obligations — running a reassuring hand across his nephew's shoulders as he passes him by.

They need to clean this mess up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you guys! Thank you so much for reading!!! Soulhugs, soulhugs, soulhugs~


	20. Interlude (End of Act II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are officially in one chapter a week territory. Also, I am _so sorry_ that I had to put you guys and Stiles through that, but I do promise that I had my reasons, and that things will continue to progress toward gradually happier avenues. I love, love, love you guys, I hope you're all staying safe, and I hope this chapter gives you something to do/enjoy for a few minutes!!! xoxoxo
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** PTSD, Injuries, Bigotry & Prejudice

Mischief isn't easy with touch. Surprises make him go still and cold and deadly. Loud, abrupt noises and crowds often inspire spontaneous teleportation.

He comes to them with loneliness and war in his eyes, stinking of salt and dust and all his invisible pain. Or he comes to them dripping liquid rubies, half-moaning half-laughing through the agony, using Roscoe as a crutch. "I'm fine," he'll say. "I'm fine, I'm fine."

He likes kids, Kali learns, through Elodie and Stiles' inability to spend his free time anywhere but the creche. He's good with kids. He still _is_ a kid.

He tries to make people forget that fact through sheer competence — Kali is often forgetting it herself, is often startled whenever he does anything to remind her. And maybe Mischief is some kind of fucking prodigy, and maybe he's changing the world, but that doesn't mean he should be—

"Jules," Kali says sharply, when the scent of fresh blood wafts her way.

Julia is washing her hands. She'd had to patch Mischief up again, bare minutes ago. He'd been bleeding from his ears, his arm a nauseating mess, his side claw-gouged and the back of his left knee fang-mangled. He had fallen unconscious nearly the moment he'd landed.

All of it had been bad - much fucking worse than usual bad - but none of it had been fatal. Not this time.

Julia's whole body is taken up by fine tremors and she's grunting quietly as she scrapes her fingers raw with the soap.

"Jules," Kali says again, stalking over and snatching Julia's hands away from the water. 

Julia lets out a soft whimper. "The first time-the—" she chokes on her words, stifles a sob. "He had a-a panic attack in fro-front of me, did I ever t-tell you that?"

"No," Kali murmurs, turning off the faucet and leading Julia over to the table, to the still open first-aid kit.

"He was re-really freaked out," she says, voice heavy and eyes brimming with tears. She swallows. "He'd meant to come here with the twins. But he went to the Hales instead. Kali, have you seen his _scars?"_

"No," Kali says again, something hot and venomous rising in her gut.

Julia weeps, and Kali aches for her. Kali aches for _him._

"He'll be okay," she says, because it's all she _can_ say.

"I know," Julia says through her tears. "I know. And then he'll leave again. And maybe he'll come back. Maybe he won't. Maybe he'll _die."_

"... Maybe," Kali concedes lowly.

"He's saved a lot of people, Kali. Alone. He shouldn't have to be so alone."

No, Kali thinks grimly, he shouldn't.

* * *

There is a mountainous creature trying to assume the shape of a black-furred Neapolitan Mastiff next to Christopher and Victoria Argent in Talia Hale's office.

Noah stares at it as he awaits the Queen of this werewolf outfit with a bunch of werewolf Hunters. It's like the cherry on top of this whole shit-fucked morning: an abnormally large dog that reminds him, strangely, of his dead wife's jeep.

His men are out dealing with the families of the victims. Spontaneous maulings, is what they're calling it. The mountain lions and coyotes just happened to choose today. A series of awful accidents and coincidences.

Noah is eager to hear the truth behind the lie, because everything he does know paints a picture that makes no sense.

The Hales are supposed to Beacon Hills' protectors.

So what the hell happened out there?

"Hale," Noah greets habitually when Peter glides into the room.

"Sheriff," Peter replies, quiet and still-lake serene. He positions himself between Noah and the Argents so casually you'd almost believe it was unintentional. His eyes are glacial and his mouth is tilted in a carefully polite smile.

Noah doesn't think he's ever seen him so angry.

And then Talia walks in.

When she sits behind her desk to address them, Peter's body curves to shield Noah's ever so slightly.

Peter is acting as if everyone in this room is a threat to them right now and it's making Noah's hackles rise. He schools his breathing, his heartbeat.

"Talia," Victoria says, sickly sweet. "Would you care to explain why we have eight civilian deaths on our hands?"

"A Siren blindsided—"

"Sirens are extinct," Victoria interrupts flatly.

Talia sighs. "You know as well as I do that nothing is ever that simple. And the fact remains that there _was_ a Siren, and we were... unprepared. It forced us all to give in to our wolves before It died, and we did things under Its' power that we _never_ would have done otherwise."

"I see," Victoria says, thin-lipped and narrow-eyed.

"Are you saying that none of your people had a choice here?" Noah asks.

"Yes," Talia replies.

"But the thing that made you all start killing people willy-nilly, it's gone?"

"Yes."

"So, are we out of the red, here? Or is it a one-hit gets you hooked type deal and now you're all gonna be jonesing for some nice, juicy human shish-kebabs? Am I gonna have to start raiding the morgue bi-weekly, or what?"

They all blink at him. Noah makes an impatient gesture with his hands. These are, he feels, important questions.

"The blue-eyed," Victoria says, and Peter's entire demeanour goes liquid and deadly in an instant, "are much more likely to kill again, now that they have a taste for it. Isn't that right, Peter?"

Chris looks incredibly uncomfortable. Peter looks — _patient._

"Victoria," Talia says softly, redirecting the Hunter's attention. "My brother did not contribute to any violence, today."

Her words are a good deterrent, but they are a worse than terrible defence, and the clouds gathering over Peter's face start sparking lightning. He moves all the closer to Noah, a secession that Victoria and Talia don't seem to notice.

"But the other blue-eyed did," Victoria says. "And we need to deal with them as soon as possible. The faster it gets done the cleaner and... kinder it will be."

Talia grimaces. Hesitates.

Peter's eyes are blades cut from ice, so cold they drip frost-bitten flame. "Lucky for us," he says, all silk-smooth decorum, "the treaty has a solution to this particular problem. One that does not result in the deaths of nine more people. Unless, of course, you mean to break it so soon?"

Victoria looks as if she'd like nothing more than to hiss and spit at him. _"We_ will not be the ones who break that treaty," she says.

"Good!" Peter announces, faux-cheerful. "Then we're all set."

"You have proof?" Chris asks, dubiously, "That your Pack was... blindsided. By a Siren."

Peter does. 

He has Derek's phone, upon which Derek was clever enough to snag a recording of the Siren's call; he has Talia's office, which happens to be a soundproofed room; he has - "Alan! Your timing is _wondrous."_ \- his Pack's Emissary and their Emissary's apprentice.

And he makes a _show_ of it. 

He presses play after Victoria's sent one of her Hunters outside to watch the rest of the Pack with Philip. Noah can't hear anything but Talia, immediately, devolves into a snapping, snarling, murderous wolf. Her eyes are inky pools circled by tiny rings of dull-glowing lava — and they latch onto Victoria with unbridled malice.

Chris moves to block, hand reaching for his gun as the wolf leaps, jaws poised to bite.

But the big black dog rises to the challenge and, with a tire-squealing yap, tackles the wolf to the ground.

Peter cuts the recording off.

Talia returns to her senses, dazed.

Alan Deaton - the _local animal doctor,_ Jesus Christ - says, "There's no question. That was indeed the effect of a Siren."

Peter flashes a bright smile at everyone in the room and seems wholly unapologetic about turning his sister into a mindless killing machine for nearly a minute. "I was lucky," he says, holding up a triskele shaped pendant dangling from a chain, "I had help from a _friend."_

Talia stands gingerly up and looks from the pendant to Peter's sunny expression, a dawning comprehension rippling over her.

"Ah," Deaton says, "I'm glad you kept wearing it. Did he come? I was hoping to meet him."

"Who?" Noah wonders.

"It doesn't matter," Peter says, so frostily chipper that Noah feels ice crystallizing in his veins. "Our Alpha turned him away."

Deaton blinks slowly. "Is that _so,"_ he says. 

Peter moves on: "We shall be sending you copies of our Pack's reparations in due time, Vicky." Victoria sneers. "Now, if you would be so kind, we've all just been through something terribly traumatic — and I think your work here is done."

Chris eases his hand away from his holster, steps back, and falls into parade rest. Victoria opens her mouth—

The big black dog whuffs and clambers over to her, nudging her toward the door with its massive, wrinkly snout. She makes a noise of disgust, but relents: thereby leaving the werewolves to their business.

Peter's happy facade vanishes.

Talia's mouth turns down.

"You should go check on them, Alpha," he says, voice like air-cleaving steel.

"Peter—"

"And if you _dare_ treat your daughter any differently for this, I will kill you. I don't care what it will do to me, I don't care what it will do to this Pack. I let Shy go, _for you._ I became this, _for you._ I can hurt you, Talia," Peter presses in closer to her, puts his hand on her desk and leans forward. Her eyes, wide and locked on his, flash. His eyes do not, he stares her down in his humanity, in his wrath, and his soul seems to devour the room. "I love you," he says. "Do not make me."

Talia swallows. "Her eyes—" she chokes. "Her eyes don't change anything."

Peter smiles an ache that Noah feels like a punch to the gut. "You, my dear sister, are a very poor liar. But you'll learn," he says. "You will tell Laura that you still love her, you will tell her that she is still beautiful, and you'll _learn."_

Peter backs off, and Talia releases a shaky breath.

"Go," he advises, three shades shy of an order. She goes.

Deaton muses, almost to himself, "Our mystery mischief-maker..."

Peter bows his head with a huff.

"He was doing good work."

Peter gives Deaton a side-long glance, "Was he, now."

"Life needs things to live," Deaton says serenely. "The Siren was hungry, so it found food. Is it the gardener's fault for planting it? The plant's fault for growing? Or the Siren's fault for eating?"

Peter regards Deaton carefully. Takes one breath. Another. "And _should_ the plant grow?"

"That," Deaton smiles, "is not up to me." He pats the big black dog on its' enormous head, and he walks away.

Peter scrubs his hands over his face with a deep, profoundly felt groan.

"Peter," Noah says, somewhere between soft and snappy.

"Oh, no," Peter sighs. "You only ever call me by my first name when I'm in trouble. Must I be in trouble right now? I've had a long day. I'm _tired."_

"You _will_ be in trouble if you don't answer some of my goddamn questions," Noah says. "How about you start by telling me who your _'mysterious mischief-maker'_ is?"

Peter groans again.

Noah claps him on the shoulder, brutal and relentless, "Buck up, kiddo. The more you whine, the longer this'll take."

The big black dog makes a creaky noise of sympathetic agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roscoe knows, first hand, that you do not prolong a Stilinski interrogation. It will not end well for you.
> 
> (Also, to any critters out there who caught the reference: _haiiii)_
> 
> Soulhugs~


	21. Mornings & Meetings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really lethargic/panicky week, this was a difficult chapter to conjure but I hope it turned out alright. I love you guys!!! Stay safe, wash your hands, and enjoy 🌺💕💕
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Injury Recovery, Stiles has PTSD, Discussions of Mortality-ish

Stiles spins back to consciousness as dizzily as he spun out of it.

Threads stitch together, reality reconstructed piecemeal before his very eyes. Fantastic. If only he could believe a second of it.

He sucks in a harsh breath that sticks, stubborn and viscous, in the depths of his lungs. His eyelids are heavy and trembling, all of him is trembling, his _bones_ are trembling. If he listens, he can hear riddles echoing in the distance, unanswerable and taunting.

It is a struggle to lug his shaking hands within sight. He counts his fingers up to ten. He counts them down. He presses them into the rigid frame of his gas-mask until every line is digging painfully into his skin. He closes his eyes. He orders his lungs into some form of working order.

Three dazzling threads of starlight beam at him from beds of mottled scar tissue, each of them pulsing with enough life to make Stiles' eyes sting.

The strongest of them is currently giving off a vague sense of eye-rolling impatience and exasperation. **Thirsty,** it seems to say. **Get a fucking move on, already.**

But Stiles remembers Talia Hale's terms, and hitches a breath full of all the weeping he refuses to do. Fuck.

God, he fucked up. He had known — he'd _known_ what restoring the Nemeton would do, he'd just thought he had more time. He'd thought his wards would be enough while he was still in the beginning stages of restoration. He'd thought he could cultivate a better trust between himself and the Hales, have a meeting, discuss Wardens and options and how _they_ could finish what he'd started.

He'd had, as with everything, a plan.

But he, of all people, should know better than to trust in a plan.

Blue and high mountaintops and falling fast and hope-crushed terror and _Peter_ seems to curl questioningly within him, all curiosity and concern. Gold and wishing wells and heavy-browed scowls and _Derek_ seems to do a more aggressive version of the same. Stiles sighs a rush of a smile, tears spilling over.

He puts his love for them, which they would only be perplexed by in this timeline, behind a sturdy wall of graveyard dirt and long-suffered fear. He sends back what amounts to a jaunty thumbs up and recedes.

Focuses on breathing.

His packbonds thrum.

He had forgotten what it felt like. To have something other than a thousand losses there.

He cannot lose them. He cannot die. He cannot give up. He has _work_ to do.

* * *

Stiles is in Julia's apartments, on her couch.

(That this is a recurring theme is not lost on him.)

He can feel the wards he'd set up for her pressing in on him, now that he's paying attention. He needs to ward the entire _compound_ better, honestly. It is still far too easy to break in.

Julia's curled up over the glass coffee table beside him, fast asleep.

His hair is unbound and oily, his mouth tastes somewhere between plaster and cakey iron, his skin is tight and uncomfortable and stained with yesterday's sweat. He forces himself to get up and limp toward Julia's bathroom.

There's water and a large basin and slightly medieval amenities, but the water's from the heart-spring and the basin is a handmade thank you gift from one of Julia's packmates. It always smells like sage and hearth, here. Comforting — despite how much he wishes he had a shower at his disposal.

He washes his face first, all harsh-scrubbing hands and held breath and _God, fuck, don't think about it, don't think._ Like ripping off a bandaid. He replaces his mask the instant he's done.

The rest of the process is meditative enough that it usually helps him calm down.

He inspects his wounds as he undresses and begins to rinse and lather. He's been stitched and salved and plastered up six ways from sunday. Julia really outdid herself this time. His arm will probably never be the same again, but at least he's fully functioning.

He's also been, at an educated guess, out for _days._

"Mischief?" Julia calls out, worry jumping in her tone.

"In here!"

She follows his voice. He'd left the bathroom door open — when you've lived with werewolves for a good portion of your life any shame associated with nudity becomes pretty nonexistent. Besides, Julia's been playing his nursemaid for _months_ now. She's seen his scars.

Her mouth wobbles into a frown when she gets closer. She looks like she's been through a tragedy and she's barely holding it together.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi," she replies. Sniffles. "You're still injured, you idiot. What are you doing?"

"I smelled like a dead rat, man. And it's not that bad."

"Only because you slept off the worst of it. That was awful, Mischief, just _awful,"_ her eyes go bright as she paces into the room, grabs ahold of the shampoo and starts going to town on his hair. She mutters a string of manic accusations that starts with how he's giving her grey hairs, could he please stop running around in Dirgen's garden for long enough to just _rest,_ and ends with: "Selfless," as she digs into his scalp fervently, "stupid," as he winces at a particularly vicious tug, "head."

She pulls away.

"Sorry," he murmurs.

Her voice is broken when she says: "I know." He contorts himself to lean his head back into the rosemary-laden bathwater, look up at her tremulous face. "I don't want you to die." His heart seizes in his chest, his exposed throat feels thin-skinned and fragile. "I _always_ want you to come here," she hurries on, like she's afraid he'll get ideas. "When you're hurt, when you need us, _whenever._ But I'm so afraid that one day you'll—. You'll be in the moon's shadow when you land, too far gone for me to help. And I won't even know what's happened to you."

Her shoulders hurtle through a sob, her shaking hands cup the sides of his head, and he struggles to swallow. His eyes are burning, shivering, drowning things attempting to rain like forlorn clouds.

"I'm not your Pack," she says. "I know you don't trust me—"

"I want to," he gasps, reaching up to cover her hands with his, and it _hurts._ God, it hurts. But it's as honest as he is able to be. "I want to."

"Then _stay,"_ she begs, desperate. "Stay. Let us take care of you. Let us help. Let me — let _me."_

"Does this mean I'm grounded again?" he asks, all aching mirth. "I've told you before you aren't my mom, right?"

She groans a laugh at him, tears still falling, and shakes him a little before she lets him go. He sits up in the basin and turns to her, sunlight spilling all around them, scattering across the linoleum, the splashing water.

"Yes." Julia swipes at her eyes. "If I was your mother I'd be grounding you for _life,_ young man."

"Rude."

Julia huffs. Slumps in on herself. "A few weeks," she says. "Let me keep you for a few weeks, and then — then you can go off and save the world again."

"Alright," he says, as lightly as he can manage.

"Try not to die," she says, a little bit like it's a joke, even though it is so very far from it.

He takes her hand in his, squeezes. "I'll try."

* * *

"I want to hug you," Kali says the second she sees him. "And so does Elodie." Sure enough, the little Kanima darling is staring up at him with big, earnest eyes. "But we'll fuck off if you need us to."

"Um," Stiles says, at length. He steels himself, opens his arms to the uncertainty of the universe, "Go for it?"

They do. Kali like she's trying to be careful but also like he's vapour and if she doesn't hold on hard enough he just might blow away; she rubs her cheeks across his throat and scruffs her hands over his head before she's done, scent marking. Elodie winds herself around his legs and only cries a little bit.

"Hey, hey," he murmurs, crouching down to tuck her into his chest. There have been altogether too many tears shed today. "None of that, now."

"You got hurt bad," she whispers, haunted. "Hunters?"

"No, sweetheart," he says. "It was my fault. I—made a mistake." He misses the way Kali and Julia stiffen, heads full of presumptive implications. "But I learned from it, okay? And, guess what?"

"What?" Elodie asks, adopting Stiles' suddenly merry conspiratorial air.

"I'm _grounded."_

Elodie, who has been witness to several of Julia's far more productive groundings and who has therefore begun interpreting this to mean that Stiles isn't going anywhere for a while, squeals and launches herself at him. In her excitement, she has sprouted scales and a tail and potentially paralyzing claws.

"Careful! Careful!" Stiles yelps, but there's a diluted happiness warming him like a sleep-cosy patch of sun. He's proud of how far she's come along, sliding into her Beta-shift so easily. It's three parts Pack, Stiles knows, and two parts the spells he and Julia have cast.

"I _am_ being careful!" she cries, as she make-believes him into a jungle gym.

"You are not," Kali says, easily lifting her off of him like a sack of flour and ignoring her scrappy protests. "He only said we could hug him, remember? He hasn't said it's okay to do anything else yet."

Elodie stops kicking and slapping and spitting. She calms. Huffs. "Okay," she says. "No touching without an okie-dokie first."

"That's right," says Kali, all imposing leader. The effect is rather spoiled by the current circumstances. "You pinky-swore."

Elodie nods solemnly, face now scrunched up in determination. Kali lets her go. Stiles watches in mute fascination and awe. He kind of feels like he's losing his mind.

He remembers eyes like freshly fallen snow. He remembers, _"In another life."_

He struggles to hold the Kali he once knew in memory. She fades ever further as Elodie asks if they can hold hands on their way to the creche. A new world is emerging all around him, new lives, new people.

_No need to fear the daylight, Time Traveller._

Into his thoughts, the feeling of rasping roots and tangled ley lines: an agreement, almost amused, then: **Thirsty.**

Well, fuck.

* * *

Kali schedules a meeting with Talia through her Emissary. They meet on neutral ground: within the Gate inside Beacon Hills' Animal Clinic.

Kali has always found it strange that the Hale Pack's Gate is so small, making the Emissary's place sacred ground but excluding the rest of the Hale packlands. She understands that Talia's territory is far bigger than her own, but it still seems so foreign to her. Most of the decisions Talia makes seem foreign to her.

Moreso in the recent months.

"Hello, Alpha Hale," she says, mild, when Talia enters the clinic's consulting room.

"Hello, Alpha Giliberto," Talia returns with a slightly bemused smile.

Kali cocks her head, "So," she says, "where's your child soldier?"

Trick question. Mischief has been at the Giliberto compound ever since his last most disastrous turn outside of their care. Kali just wants to see what Talia will say.

"I... think you must be mistaken."

Oh, _fuck her._

Very privately seething, Kali says, "Okay. Sure. Well, he wanted me to pass these along when I got the chance. With an," she grimaces, "apology."

She places the gorgeous, deep brown oak jewellery box onto the metal table between them and unhooks the latch, lifting its lid to reveal dozens of necklaces; all sleek, durable chains and silver-shine triskele pendants.

Mischief had spent days forging them, carving the box for them, resolve and guilt hanging so thick in the air around him that Kali could barely stand it.

She had wanted so badly to say something. She's not normally the type of person to hold her tongue when it comes to shit like this. But where Peter would have smirked coldly and offered a quip when Kali proposed a coup d'état, she thinks Mischief would have shut down.

It'd taken a lot for him to ask this of her, and if she had refused him in any manner... He would've just found a way to deliver the boon himself. Probably would've come back home covered in bruises and blood and _wretched._

Kali had been both unwilling to provide a reason for Mischief to cut his convalescence short, and too joyed at the obvious gesture of blossoming trust to screw it up by saying something like: _"Your Alpha is an abusive dick and she doesn't deserve anything from you."_

Talia has taken the box, now. Her normally politic-polite expression cracking around the edges. Her heartbeat quick and her breath short.

"Talia," Kali says. "I don't know what you think he did — or what's going through your head, but he's _human_ and he's just a fucking kid."

Talia's attention snaps away from the pendants and lands on Kali, bewildered.

A growl gnars through the rest of Kali's words, so close to a blatant threat it might've brought them to war a few years ago. She can't find it in herself to care. "So could you maybe quit marching him into battle so Gods damned recklessly? You're going to get him killed."

"I—. Mischief isn't mine—"

Kali laughs. Right in Talia's face. "Oh, pull the wool over someone else's eyes, Talia. He's yours. But he won't be much longer, if you keep treating him the way you do."

If the moon's shadow doesn't stretch over him first, Kali's going to take him away.

Talia blinks at Kali, and then down at the box full of some of the most powerful supernatural armour Kali's ever seen. Kali makes a sound of derision through her nose and leaves Talia to her vapid thoughts.

Gods above, smite that woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soulhugs~


	22. It Takes Its Toll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Wherein we take a trip down memory lane_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear this fic will have the _happiest_ ending. I love you guys with all my heart and soul, be safe out there, xoxoxoxo
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Bigotry & Prejudice, Family Drama, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, The Alpha Claws mashugana

Talia brings home the boxful of pendants, one for each packmate, and tells Peter what had happened in her meeting with Kali. He takes the box from her, grim.

"She thinks Mischief is _ours,"_ Talia says, because she can't get over the ridiculousness of it. Peter's expression remains stony, his grip on the rich oaken box tight, his scent mountaintops as the clouds are rolling in; cracking and crumbling stone that might've once shaped looming giants, but now builds only time-scoured, limb-lost golems. "... You're not surprised."

"He nearly let me kill him, Talia," Peter says, thoughtful. "He did his best not to hurt me, and he brought me _down."_ His eyes flicker over the planes of her face, "Frankly, I'm not entirely certain a packmate would've done the same."

"Peter," she says, an ache in her throat. "That's not fair."

He tilts his head slightly, ice chips in his eyes, scent gathering enough fog to chill her, "Isn't it?"

He leaves before she can respond, and he takes the box with him.

* * *

Talia had become the Alpha's Heir moments after she'd been born.

She'd been the previous Alpha's only child for seven long years, though she'd never been alone. She'd been raised to keep every ounce of emotion for her Pack. She'd been taught strategy and survival and war. Her mother had laboured to achieve and maintain peace, but it had been a struggle and she'd been sure that it wouldn't last.

Her mother had been afraid that the Argents would turn on them; she'd been afraid of the other Alphas with their smaller, but much more vicious Packs; she'd been afraid of arrogance and wickedness, and she'd passed all of those fears onto Talia.

Talia's little sister and little brother had come barely a year apart, practically twins. She and Shy had never been able to handle each other, but she'd always _adored_ Peter.

"You shouldn't get too close, darling," her mother had told her, face forever full of storms. Talia had never once seen her mother smile. "He will be your Left Hand, someday. He's going to have to scar his soul for our Pack, do you understand? Be grateful to him, but do not get too close. It will only make it hurt worse."

Talia had choked on her heartbeat. Her fingers had twitched. Her eyes had grown wet with tears. But that was all alright. She was allowed to be vulnerable in front of her mother — nowhere else, but here.

"Why?" she'd asked. Begged. Couldn't it be Shy? Couldn't it be _anybody_ else?

Her mother had stared at her. "Because you trust him," she'd said.

And Talia had realized that it was another lesson. Because Alphas are meant to love everyone in their Pack equally. Because Alphas are not meant to express anything that could be used against them outside of their dens. And Talia had been parading her affections for her favourite little brother around so _carelessly._

His wretched fate had been sealed, by her hand.

On the night that she'd broken down and confessed, told Peter that he was to be Left Hand and why, he'd gathered her up against his small body and said, "I've got you, Tal. Don't worry."

Over time, she had learned that he'd seen their mother spying on them. He'd understood what making Talia let her guard down around him would mean. Almost rebelliously, almost obstinately, he'd allowed it to happen.

"I have the disposition for it, anyway," he'd said, tilting his chin haughty. Then he'd grinned, "And I like you better when you're _real."_

* * *

Until Talia was twenty, the only blue-eyes she'd known was her Uncle Charlie.

He'd been all oil-slick black curls and heavy brows and sky blue eyes. He'd smiled like the dawn: daily and with a diluted, watery kind of sunshine. When Talia was nine, a Hunter had tried to kill her. And she'd seen Uncle Charlie turn into a _monster._

He had ripped so wildly, cruelly into that Hunter. He hadn't stopped when the Hunter was dead. Talia's mind had plunged into river-rush white-noise.

She'd looked up at him with wide, terrified eyes when he was done. The Hunter's body had been little more than a puddle of cracked bones and viscera. There'd been blood soaking her dress. Uncle Charlie had still been in the shift, claws and fangs dripping, eyes shining a cold, awful blue.

"Talia," he'd said, low, approaching her.

She'd flinched away, and a scream had ripped from her throat, high and shrill, _"Don't touch me!"_

His face had gone blank. He'd stepped back. He'd looked so frightening, there, unsmiling and soiled.

She'd run from him. She'd never spoken to him again. His smiles now reminded her of nothing but the savagery he'd sunk into that day, the savagery he'd have to show her time and time again in order to keep her safe.

Life went on. Uncle Charlie stopped smiling. She can't recall exactly when. She doesn't know if it had been gradual or if it'd just fallen off of his face one day, never to return.

Talia had been married to a Beta from an influential Pack in Ireland two years before her mother had died at the hands of Alexander Argent. She'd had Philip perched on her hip and Laura growing strong in her belly when the red had seeped into her irises.

Peter had been thirteen.

Uncle Charlie, minutes after he had seen her new wolven eyes, had nodded solemnly.

"Peter," he'd said.

"Yes," Peter had replied, offering her a slightly feeble smile as he'd followed Uncle Charlie out into the Preserve. As Uncle Charlie's heir, he had been much closer to him than anyone else in the Pack. Not many dared get close to the Left Hand.

He had returned alone hours later, smelling of lake water and dirt. His eyes had flashed a cold and awful blue. "Alpha," he'd greeted.

Her heart had broken for him. Blue-eyed, soul-scarred. He was no longer the little brother she knew. He never would be again.

"Left Hand."

* * *

Shy had railed against everything and everyone.

She'd loved Peter and no one else. She'd been a selfish, brash girl who had somehow been converted to that heathenous religion that Kali and Deucalion now suffered under. Worshipping the _moon,_ for heavens' sake.

She'd grin as she insulted you and everyone you loved. She'd laugh when you tripped and fell and scraped your knee. She saw flaws in everything Talia had ever done.

"You don't hug him, anymore," she'd said, once, after Mother and Uncle Charlie had been dead three years. "How come, huh? You think you're better than us, don't you?"

"Shy," Talia had said, as coolly as she could. "I am his Alpha. He is my Left Hand."

Shy had sneered. "Yeah," she'd said, "you think you're better."

Shy had tried for a day, when she was eighteen, to preach that blue-eyes were a gift from the Gods. Blue-eyes had thrown the moon's shadow and so their wolves had been bathed in moonlight. They were Mother Moon's children. They were Paleadnysa's beloved. They were Dirgen's gardeners. They were _blessed._

The Pack had turned on her. Shunned her completely.

"Shy," Talia had begun later, blood running hot and tremulous in her veins, "what were you _thinking?"_

It'd been the only time she'd seen Shy so unsure of herself, the rampage in her so faint. "I wasn't thinking," she'd said. "I was _angry."_ She'd turned on Talia, fangs bared, "You could stop this, you know. You're the _Alpha._ I can't change anything, but you _can."_

"And what would you have me do?" Talia had wondered, incredulous, "Make them all believe in your filthy little Gods?"

"No," Shy had breathed. "No, that's not it. I don't care about that. I care about Peter."

Talia had been utterly bewildered. "Peter's fine."

"You can't—. Do you honestly believe that? _Fine,"_ she'd bitten out, mocking, eyes flaring a brilliant gold. "He's been all but abandoned."

Talia had settled back into herself, and smiled. "No, he hasn't. I know you two are close but you can't imagine your problems onto him."

Shy had stared at her. "You're crazy," she'd said. "I can't believe you. You're crazy. You're _crazy."_

She had stormed out. A week later, she hadn't returned, and Peter had wanted to search for her. But Talia had assumed that Shy had run away, that she needed time to cool off, that she'd come home on her own.

Six days later, she had. And her eyes had shone that cold, awful blue. Hunters had taken her, she'd said, desperate. She'd _had_ to kill, in order to escape. In order to survive.

It'd been five years since Mother had died. Talia's bond with the Pack, with her Left Hand, had been fully cemented. The treaty her mother had been negotiating with the Argents had _finally_ been signed last summer. Talia had acquired the full-shift. It had been over a year since the last territory dispute, and Peter had plans for college; for travel and inter-Pack relations and more treaties to come. 

The Hales would be heralding a new age. One of _peace._

They couldn't afford this.

Shy had looked half-feral. Hungry.

Talia had mourned her little sister with a depth that she hadn't expected. "You brought this on yourself," she'd said, stone-faced, and turned away.

Peter had taken the woeful Shy out into the Preserve. He had returned alone hours later, smelling of lake water and dirt.

Her body was never found.

* * *

Deucalion thinks Mischief is the reincarnation of a God.

Talia thinks Deucalion is very... imaginative. He is almost like a child, with his naive visions of everlasting peace and a future where werewolves and humans can coexist knowingly without any bloodshed. She understands _craving_ that, she has lived her whole life craving that, but hope and reality don't often take each other's counsel unless luck is involved, and luck is rarely ever on their side.

The harsh truth is that this fragile harmony they've created over the past sixteen years is probably the best they're going to get.

And Talia knows that Mischief is one of the reasons they've gotten this far. He'd made the Hale Pack's links with the Giliberto, Edinger, and Kokkinos Packs far more stable. He'd brokered a more favourable treaty between their region and the Argents. He and Kali's Emissary had bridged the gap between them and the Sacramento Pack. He had, in his spare time, resolved some internal disputes Talia hadn't even noticed.

But that did not make him a _God._ Reincarnated or otherwise.

She had assumed that he was some foreign Pack's errant Emissary, come to foster goodwill before asking after a marriage prospect or a trade agreement or a long-term safe passage form.

She hadn't liked how many deaths he'd left in his wake, but it wasn't necessarily her business. _He_ wasn't her business, until he was introduced to her.

And Peter, who had so long refused every offer of Mating and marriage that Talia had begun to lose hope, liked him. She might have preferred his attention being caught by some gold-eyed girl from one of the Packs in their region, but she'd thought, _I can work with this._

Mischief was young, but he had a lot of power. His Pack had obviously given him a lot of freedom and licence to achieve their purposes, he would probably understand those soul-scarred facets of Peter in a way that nobody else would, and creating a marriage-bond between their two Packs could only be beneficial in the long run.

She had expected him to bring something up after what had happened with the Sacramento Pack. He hadn't.

She'd been lying in wait, perfectly prepared to agree to whatever it was — he had, after all, earned it.

And then, the _Siren._

 _Why_ had Mischief been messing with the Nemeton? How could he be so arrogant and misguided?

Talia knows the history, she knows just how dangerous the Nemeton is, she can't fathom how her own ancestors had grieved its loss. She'd always been glad she'd been born into an era where it had already been cut down. She doesn't want to see a world where it's restored.

Especially not after what a glimpse of that world has cost her.

And she has to wonder, is _this_ what he'd been aiming for all this time? The Nemeton? Depleting a fourth of her number?

It makes her feel uneasy, nervous.

Talia could've _banished_ Mischief for the misfortune he'd brought upon them; her Pack, her town. People are _dead._ Souls have been forever ruined. 

The sentence she'd passed was not only merciful but _justified._ She can't understand why Peter and Alan and half of her children all seem to think that it was so terrible.

Mischief isn't Pack, he isn't a friend, he hasn't initiated any alliance, and if he does hail from another Pack they don't know which one. He could've been more to them, maybe, in time.

But he'd caused this tragedy, hadn't he?

"Mama," Laura says into her thoughts. Her daughter hasn't referred to her as anything else since her... issue. She's given up her college crusade as well, thank all the Gods.

"Yes, darling?"

Laura's hand is fisted over the new pendant around her throat. Talia can see veins crackling like lightning in the whites of her eyes. "Why didn't you just let the Hunters kill us?"

"Laura," Talia sighs. The question squirms in her chest, dives down into her belly and sloshes. "Don't be difficult. You're my daughter, my Hier, I couldn't—"

"The rest of them, then?" Laura persists.

Talia swallows, shifts her shoulders. "There was no reason to. The treaty—. The treaty kept them safe."

"But you could've ordered it," Laura says. He skin is pulled tight over her bones. Her lips are too-pale and bright red around the seams. She is painful to look at. "You could've had Peter do what he always does with the blue-eyes. Or you could've broken your packbonds with them. Why didn't you?"

Talia finds no answer for that in her head, her lungs, her belly. Her heart is beating faster than it ought to. She tries to slow it down, but it refuses to listen. She wants to be angry, but she only feels numb, like she's staring at a coffin.

"Did you want to?" Laura asks softly, so softly, stepping closer.

Talia's heart seems to crack. "No," she whispers.

But it's a lie. They both know it's a lie.

Laura reaches out to touch her, and Talia has to force herself not to flinch.

"Mama," Laura says. "Do you even realize what you're doing? How _painful_ this is? Just enough Pack not to die, only that much, no more."

Laura looks half-feral. She looks _hungry._

"What on earth are you talking about?" That squirming thing in her gut rises like acid up into her throat and Talia wants nothing more than to draw away. She doesn't. She feels Peter's warnings like a brand on her skin where Laura is touching her. "Everybody is trying to — to reconcile with what's happened. It's going to take time."

"Mama," Laura says. She sounds strained. "I wanted to do this the right way. I really did."

Laura is fast and for all that Talia is upset, she isn't expecting her daughter's claws to slip into the back of her neck, underneath her skull, so close to her spine it's a centimetre away from being deadly.

She remembers her mother's warnings: _"You shouldn't get too close, darling."_

She remembers the last words she spoke to Shy: _"You brought this on yourself."_

And a well of darkness swallows her whole.

* * *

"Uncle P-Peter... Uncle Peter, I need your help."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When going Omega is tantamount to death in your mind, and you've been lavished with Pack your whole life only to have the rug pulled out from under you in the most unexpected way possible, you're bound to go a little crazy.
> 
> _soulhugs~_


	23. Reverse Uno Card

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dude... I don't think I have any trigger warnings for this one? It's like, the Alpha Claws thing, there being consequences for actions, and that's it? This is the _first time._ I'm amazed. I'm also vaguely worried this chapter won't live up to expectations, but I tried. I love you guys!!!! xoxoxo
> 
>  **A/N :** I've moved the rating up to mature because the themes kind of always have been on the mature side of things and it honestly should've been mature from the start.

Peter's in the sunroom with Róisín when it happens.

It is nearly two months after the Siren and the aftershocks are still echoing throughout their Pack, the resonance of a warning-bell that refuses to stop ringing. 

Peter has been doing his best to help the blue-eyed reconcile with their new situations, but the rest of the Pack's reactions have been making it profoundly difficult. Packbonds are frayed, relationships are strained, and half of the blue-eyed seem on the brink of going Omega every other day from the sheer isolation of it.

Róisín and Laura appear to be suffering the most following their harsh and abrupt exile to the fringes.

Róisín is both the youngest of the curadh gan chloí and possessed of an incredibly tender disposition. To have her sisters-at-arms passive-aggressively neglecting her like this because she _killed someone_ \- nevermind that it was against her will and she has little to no recollection of it - is devastating to her.

"I've never liked the way they treated you," she'd said early on, eyes gone liquid, "but I never once did anything to stop them, did I? Perhaps this is my due."

"Róisín..."

She'd looked up at him with a watery smile, sitting shielded behind Ben-J's plants as she so often was these days. "See? You want to comfort me, but you can't deny it. And now," her breath had caught. "Now," she'd said, hands clenching in her lap, "when no one else will even look me in the face, here you are. Being kind. After all that we've done to you."

"You're Pack," Peter had said, loftily, "and my loyalty is made of stronger stuff than some others I could mention."

Róisín had snorted, and Peter had felt a small flash of victory.

Laura, however, who has always been afforded a certain level of affection and indulgence as the Alpha's Heir, who has always been the beloved Pack Princess, is finding betrayal at nearly every turn.

Talia is very carefully _not_ avoiding her in a way that screams discomfort and resignation to an unhappy chore. Many of her friendships have boiled down to discreet dodging and ill-hidden suspicion. No one from her usual circles will speak with her, spar with her, hunt with her, scent her, sit pressed up close and laughing during Pack meals.

Peter, Derek, Róisín, and a handful of other packmates have done what they can to pick up the slack, to look out for her, but she hasn't been handling it well.

Not that Peter - or anyone - had expected her to.

Later, he'll wonder how he didn't see it coming.

Now, he feels a wrench in his gut so deep in visceral that all coherent thought escapes him: _Alpha._

He rushes toward the source of it; the palpable, distinct origin of _what the fuck, something's wrong._ Róisín is barely a step behind him. And she's not the only one — they all felt that.

"Oh, Laura," Peter breathes when he slams into Talia's office, because there she is, standing toe-to-toe with her mother, her claws embedded delicately into the back of Talia's neck.

Laura's Alpha potential makes her capable of feats that no normal Beta could ever dare, but everyone has their limits. It _is_ possible to inherit the Alpha Spark without your former Alpha dying — if you have their consent and an Emissary on hand. It is also possible to steal an Alpha Spark without killing the Alpha that you're... demoting. But, as it employs the same technique one uses to steal memories, it is _unspeakably_ dangerous.

Possible side-effects include neurological damage, amnesia, paralysis, death — etcetera. No one kind or sane would recommend it.

Laura and Talia's eyes are strobing between Alpha and Beta at headache-inducing rates.

"Uncle P-Peter," Laura chokes, tears dripping down her cheeks, breath a harsh rasp. "Uncle Peter, I need your help."

"Alright, Lulu-love," he murmurs, a shard of pain entering his heart and pulsing. His mind whirls, discarding ideas as useless almost as quickly as he comes up with them. He feels sick, his love for his sister and his love for his niece coagulating into a frothing vat of sticky black tar in his stomach. His wolf is whimpering under the sudden, incomplete tear in their Pack's hierarchy.

"What on earth," Carrie says behind him, her voice quivering with fury, "do you think you're _doing,_ girl?"

Laura might've flinched, if she could've moved her body at all.

Peter tosses a heated growl over his shoulder.

Róisín braces an arm across Carrie's clavicle and falls into her shift with a foundation-jarring roar. Her scent, usually all river grizzly pawing lazily at the fish swimming slippery within the currents, rises and bristles until it's all but roaring with her. Her irises flow into a crashing, tempest-thrown sea. Carrie pales, backs up a step, and subsequently forces everyone else who'd been drawn here to back up with her.

Derek, fading into the forefront out of nowhere, says, "What's best for the Pack." His tone heavily implies that Carrie is an idiot for needing it to be spelled out for her. Conversely, the water in his scent is rippling with anxiety, the moss growing on cracked, sun-baked stones half-withered, no wishing-coins to be found.

Peter flicks a look of strained reassurance Derek's way and turns back to Laura, daunted.

Gods above, having Alan within shouting distance would be really nice right about now.

Then, miraculously - _always_ miraculously - there is a sharp, condensed whistle, and Mischief is suddenly just _there._

"Woah," he says. He's standing behind Talia's desk, looking a little frazzled. His hair is in messy, sparkle-scrunchie pigtails, he's wearing a deep blue apron and half of him is covered in flour. "Woah," he says again, drinking in Talia and Laura and the obviously divided Alpha Spark. Almost absently, he takes a handful of mountain ash out of his apron's pocket and drops it onto the floor. A thick rope of black grain slithers, snake-like, around the perimeter of the room until Peter, Talia, Laura, and Mischief are sealed inside the barrier.

Carrie makes a lot of alarmed noises about this, but she sounds as if she's underwater, miles away.

Derek, like it's easy, steps across the ash-line and comes to stand at Peter's side. This is not, technically, the first time Peter has seen Mischief's strange ability to allow whomsoever he pleases over his ash-lines, thereby defying the extremely rigid Druidic Laws mountain ash is supposed to adhere to. Previous experience does nothing to hinder the awed, hungry sensation tingling in his bones.

"Well, then," Peter breathes, faint.

Mischief's eyes tick over to him and crinkle slightly before returning to the matter at hand. "Hey, Laura, can you hear me?"

Laura heaves in shattered gasps, but answers, "Yeah."

"Cool." Mischief vaults over the desk to get to the two women and moves smoothly into Laura's space, hooking his chin over the shoulder of her outstretched arm and aligning his arm with hers until both of their hands are cradling the back of Talia's neck.

Talia is - as she has been up until this point - damningly unresponsive.

Mischief doesn't ask what's going on, why this happened, who is in the right. He does not hesitate or falter. He says, "So, you've got three options. You can let this go, kill her, or leave her paralyzed for the rest of her life."

Laura hitches a sob. Derek slides his hand into Peter's and holds on for dear life.

"What happens if she 'lets this go'?" Peter wonders, quiet and cracked through.

"Nothing," Mischief says without looking at him. "Talia stays Alpha. Not too sure what she did to make Lulu-love desperate enough to pull this, but I'm assuming that it was bad."

Derek twitches. Stays silent.

Peter decides to set the knowledge of a childhood nickname only used within the Pack aside for now.

Laura whines, high-throated and terrible, "She treats all of the blue-eyed like soulless shells. Like we're better off dead. And she is our Alpha."

"So the Pack follows her," Mischief breathes with horrified understanding. He sighs sibilantly. "Shit. _Shit._ If I had known—." He inhales sharply. "Laura," his voice is all ferrous-bite, determined. "You've gotta make your choice within, like, the next ten seconds, dude."

"I have to—. It has to be me, or nothing will change." The words drag out of her like broken bones, like lost things, like salted ground. "I won't kill her," she weeps, wretched and agonized.

"Okay," Mischief says, and then he digs his black-lacquered nails into the back of Talia's neck with Laura's. 

Talia groans, belly-deep and animal. 

Mischief chants something in a language that isn't Latin, but is close. 

Talia's irises shine a dull gold, Laura's irises burn a vivid red, and the colours settle. 

Mischief gentles Laura's hand away with his. 

Talia crumples to the floor, unconscious. 

Nobody moves to catch her.

"By all the moon's light," Laura murmurs, staring down at Talia, dazed. Derek and Peter converge on her immediately, scent-marking and — honestly, descending into a frenzy spurred on by Laura being emotionally overwhelmed and their packbonds flooding with her new power.

Peter's never felt such a _strong_ connection to his Alpha before. He's half invigorated and half unsteadied by it. He's always known that Talia had begun treating him differently after he became Left Hand, but to have the canyon-gaping dichotomy between an Alpha who barely trusts you, barely believes you are more than a ghost, and an Alpha who loves and accepts you whole-heartedly shoved in his face like this is... startling.

"Hey," Mischief says, once they've calmed down some. Laura is still crying, shaking, in their arms. He waits until she meets his eyes. "I know that I don't really know you, but I've heard some things. Some really amazing things. You're gonna be a great Alpha, Laura Hale."

Laura chokes on an incredulous, self-deprecating laugh, "I just _paralyzed my mother."_

Mischief shrugs with a quirk in his eyes that suggests good humour. "Sure," he says, "and how many terrible things do you think _she's_ done in her time? As an Alpha you're going to have to make some fucking _tough_ decisions to keep your Pack safe — this is just the first of many." He considers her solemnly for a moment, "Do you think you made a mistake?"

Laura glances around the room, at Talia, at her little brother, at Peter. He flashes his eyes, blue, and she flashes her eyes back. 

He does not have an Heir, this whole thing was unplanned, and even if he did he doesn't think Laura is the type of Alpha who would ask his Heir to inherit their title the same way that Peter had. He doesn't know what's going to happen next, but he knows this: he loves his Pack. He loves his niece. And she has him. Until death, she has him.

Their packbond twines a little tighter, shines a little brighter, and glitters with newfound purpose. She is his Alpha. _She is his Alpha._

Laura swallows thickly, looks back at Mischief, shoulders levelling strong under the duty she's taken on, and says, "No."

Mischief's expression, his scent, his body-language goes all happy warm. "Good girl," he says, an echo of Peter's own typical expression of pride for his niece.

He, of course, vanishes before he can be questioned about it, his eyes smiling beatifically at the three of them before he goes. His mountain ash goes with him.

 _"Dude,"_ Laura says.

"I _know,"_ Derek says.

"Children," Peter says, and indicates their mother on the floor and their packmates all waiting feverishly at the door. Today is going to be a very long day, he thinks.

The packbonds he shares with Laura, Derek, and Mischief all beam at him, blinding and rich with power and affection. The brittle, twisted packbond he shares with Talia still beats with life, but it is no longer a gory Alphan red.

And Peter, despite himself, breathes a little easier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stiles: *in the middle of baking cakes with Elodie, feels his packbonds sound the alarm and just teleports without warning*  
> Elodie: Julia!!!!!  
> Meanwhile, back to Stiles: *internally freaking out but covering like a boss* what the fuck you guys i left you alone for, like, _five minutes._  
>  Peter: he's beauty, he's grace, he's _a Seer for 200$, Alan, come on, pay up._
> 
> Soulhugs~~~


	24. The Hale Pack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone out there is doing okay as they can be, and I hope this chapter reaches you in good health and offers five minutes or so of entertainment. Love you lot, _all the soulhugs~_ xoxoxo
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** PTSD, Small Gore Mentions, Bigotry & Prejudice, Death Mentions, Minor Psychological Horror(??? -ish?), Grief

Julia and Elodie are _on him_ the moment he lands.

"Oh—ah—hey!" Stiles yelps as they manhandle him, checking for injuries, fussing and chattering at nearly inhuman speeds. "Guys! Guys! I'm fine!"

"You always say that," Julia says unhappily, "and you're always _lying."_

"But I'm _not_ this time." Stiles twirls around to show them, spreads his arms out, "Look, see? I'm fine—I'm _actually_ fine."

They both blink at him. "You are," Julia says, stunned, and pokes his chest like she can't quite believe he's real now that he's proven to be uninjured. Stiles — really needs to stop worrying them so badly.

"I am."

Elodie stomps her foot, "Then why—. Where—? I thought you were baking cakes with me for Lusagaria!"

"I know, kiddo," Stiles soothes immediately. "And we are totally still doing that, I just got—a little distracted."

"But you're supposed to be grounded," Elodie points out petulantly.

Julia crosses her arms over her chest, expression dimming.

"There was—," Stiles heaves a sigh, looking from Elodie to Julia and back again.

He needs to make a decision, here.

He has planned out most things up until now, he's survived by clinging to those plans and the future they might bring, but he's not _omniscient._ He'd directed his father to both the Lahey boys and Peter with no real idea of the precious relationships it would inspire; he'd begun restoring Beacon Hills' Nemeton without a word because he hadn't expected the supernatural to react to it so quickly; he'd mostly avoided the Hale Pack because of shit memories and because he'd assumed that they'd be fine if he just... protected them from afar.

But that'd, apparently, meant willful blindness. He'd had no idea what Talia was doing, he'd had no idea that putting blue-eyed in her care would cause so much strife.

Now Laura is the Hale Alpha — and he can have faith in her, he thinks, he knows her better. But the fact that she is Alpha at all is... big. Bigger than he could've conceived of a year and a half ago, when he'd entered this timeline.

And Stiles is here, instead of his all but abandoned apartment, surrounded by people who care about him and with three packbonds swirling bright inside his chest despite having been so sure that he'd end this as alone as he had started it. 

Elodie's forehead is crinkled, her bottom lip pushed tremulously out, her hands fisted in her skirts. Julia has resignation writ in the line of her shoulders: she always holds her tongue when it comes to him, afraid of pushing him away. 

The kitchens are politely ignoring them; Nunna, their ruler, will be Elodie's adoptive mother as soon as the papers go through. She's one of Julia's closest friends, and she fell in love with Elodie after only a half-hour in her presence. "Elodie and Julia both adore you," she'd told him once, shrugging, and left it at that. But she keeps her cooks from being nosy, she lets the three of them get away with far more than she'd let anyone else, and she gives him blessings whenever he gives her the chance.

Stiles hesitates for another breath, two.

Eyes like freshly fallen snow, he remembers. _"In another life,"_ as blood had gushed and splattered from a cracked-open chest.

Julia. Kind, gentle, fierce Julia. _"Let us help. Let me — let **me."**_

Okay, Stiles thinks. Okay.

He leans down to lift Elodie up into his arms, onto his hip; asks Julia, "Where's Kali? There's something I need to tell her."

* * *

The Pack gathers around Laura, impelled by that spool of liquid blue now turned red.

Talia has been put to bed. Anyone who might've resisted this transition before is currently too adrift in a haze of new-Alpha and shock to protest. 

Laura leads her people to the edge of the Preserve, Peter on her left and Derek on her right. The rest are turned to her, expectant or filled with curious wonder or, perhaps, filled with sinking dread.

"My mother is not dead," Laura speaks over the spellbound hush.

It does need to be said. Everyone had _felt_ what'd happened, but much less had witnessed it for themselves. The news is met with relief, discomfort, bewilderment. Unusual does not cover this. There is no precedent, none at all, and theirs is a Pack that runs on tradition.

"In my lessons as the Alpha's Heir, I was taught many things. I was taught the way of every Alpha before me; I was taught to carry on their legacy, the Hale legacy. As my mother has. As my Grandmother did. As my Grandmother's Grandmother did. I was taught the unspoken laws that I must follow. The unspoken laws that I must make my Pack follow," Laura's eyes sketch across the faces of the crowd, soft and hard at once. The sun sinks languidly behind the canopy, every harsh angle made delicate in slant-spilling dusky shadows. She unsheathes the claws of her left hand and lifts them up, symbol, spectacle, "I was taught how to take away a memory."

She lets her hand drop. The shift climbs, from fingers to throat to mouth, nose, brows, crown. She is a werewolf in all but eyes; her eyes keep human. Her diction through her fangs is raw, flawless, "With a touch, I can suffer somebody else's pain for them. I can't heal, but I can do that. I did not need to be taught how. It's in my blood. It is in _all_ of our blood. We can grant reprieve to a civilian, to a wolf... to a Siren."

Stilted chaos reigns at this, their packmates wavering. Laura waits. She does not call for silence, her irises do not bleed, her voice does not go deep and Alphan-enthralling.

"Laura," Philip calls out, at last. He looks sallow. Ill. "No one would — for a _Siren."_

"No," she agrees. "Not even I would." And the crowd begins to calm. "But that's not the point. If I touched a Siren while It was in pain - true pain - and I felt sympathy for It for even a moment... Its pain would flow into me like water."

The contention is conceded. This is a truth. An uncomfortable truth, but a truth. Her words have shaken them out of their stupor and restlessness washes over them like a tide.

"Any werewolf," Laura says, "can learn the full-shift. That gift isn't ours just because we're _good_ at it, but taking away pain — that belongs to _us."_

This is also a truth, marrow-deep. Personal.

"I took my mother's Alphahood earlier tonight, with the help of a Spark. An old friend who is, paradoxically, a stranger to me: Mischief," Laura huffs a small laugh, shakes her head, and wry mirth ripples out unto all of them through her.

"My mother taught me everything I needed to know to take her power. Our Pack's spiral, the triskele, means Alpha, Beta, Omega. An Omega can become a Beta can become an Alpha can become an Omega again; anyone can rise, anyone can fall. Our Pack was given this spiral for a reason. I think... I think we've let ourselves forget it."

The sky freckles with stars, offers them a perfect lemon wedge of a moon. Laura sighs deeply.

"I let _myself_ forget it. I was the Alpha's Heir, you know, how on earth could that change? With a _dream._ That's all it took. A song and a dream. I woke up drenched in blood that did not belong to me. I don't know who it belonged to. _Of course it changed me,"_ her words tremble with horror, with wrath. "Who _wouldn't_ it have changed? Suddenly, my wolven eyes were blue and my Pack had _deserted_ me."

Shame steadily seeps into the fabric of scents around them. Soft keens build heavenward.

"You all left me," she says with the weight of a sob. "I was scared and alone and in days, in _days,_ I would've gone Omega. To the few that stuck by my side, I am so grateful," her gaze rains heartache-love upon Peter and Derek, upon Róisín, upon Henley and Ben-J, upon the other blue-eyed. "I wish I could say you helped more than you did. I wish I could say that you alone would've been enough. But I needed more. Maybe because I was the Heir. Maybe because I was _used_ to more. Maybe because most of the packmates who were trying to help me were hurting too, were going Omega too."

Laura lowers her head into her hands, weeps for a moment. Only for a moment. And her Pack weeps with her, their packbonds swollen sore with her grief.

"Do you want to know something amazing?" she wonders into her wet palms. Her hands slide down her face. Her lips curl sharp-wide underneath her cheeks' rivers. "I could still do it. That gift that lives inside every Hale — I could still take pain, you know? Even with blue eyes. When I found out I was—" she inhales sharply with an aborted shake of her head. "It was a revelation. Because for a second there I was almost convinced. I was almost convinced that being blue-eyed didn't mean I was _different,_ it meant that I was _less than._ Sub-human. That not only was my mother right," her voice shivers on the precipice, and _now_ her eyes go blood, _now_ her voice goes earthshaking command, _"but the Hunters were too."_

Some are felled by this blow, knees crashing to the dirt in contrition. A few are outraged and defensive and red-faced as they choke on it. Peter is all impotent fury and anguish on her behalf, Derek is a mess of shaking limbs, Róisín's fingers are pressed to her lips as she cries but she doesn't dare look away. Henley grins, the sparkle of saltwater staining her dimples, and Ben-J beside her is stoic, resolute.

"But our gift," Laura crescendos above them all, "our _painful_ gift, was proof! That I was still a Hale! That I was still a wolf!" Her volume descends, quiets, "That I deserved _better."_

The crowd is with her. Whether they hate her or love her, they are with her. They're _paying attention._

"That we all," Laura says, a sigh on the branch-rustling breeze, "deserved better."

Henley tilts her head up and ululates. Róisín cheers, guttural and overcome. Peter and Derek and the blue-eyed follow, until all the clearing has erupted with noises of agreement and joy, understanding, _long live the Queen._

The glow of their packbonds thump. A heartbeat, a lead, and Laura is the source. Every thread goes to her, comes from her, _is_ because of her.

_Alpha._

They feel it in their souls, in the earth, in the twilit sky. Her age ceases to matter. Her singular, human body ceases to matter. Her grief, her rage, her determination; they are as she is and she is as they are. Even the ones who do not agree with her, who are frightened of what is going to happen now, cannot deny it. Cannot fight it.

_Alpha._

Laura laughs, small and wrecked. "Oh, man," she breathes. Sniffles an inhale. Regards them all with — responsibility.

"I know some of you," she begins, and the cacophony greets happily its concluding silence, "think that I am wrong. If I could, I'd offer you the chance to find another Alpha. To leave for a Pack that might be better for you. Because I would never want to abandon you to your suffering or wilfully pretend that I cannot see your distress."

 _Like Talia did, like **you** did,_ rings unsaid in the minds of the crowd.

"But..." Laura's Alpha-red eyes pick out the ones she knows, from watching and loving her blue-eyed Uncle, from experience, to be the worst offenders, "our Pack is - _was_ \- the last to hold with the old ways. Even if I gave you leave to move on, you would only find more Alphas that think like I do. You would only find more Packs filled with Bitten and blue-eyed, integrated and loving. The only Pack you'd ever find willing to agree with you," she says, chin raised, "puts wolfsbane bullets in their guns."

This, too, is a truth.

And now her more unwilling Betas must face it.

* * *

Kali and her Howlers are preparing for a hunt.

Deserts do not normally have many animals to spare, but these are packlands, fed by magic. There will be jackrabbits and coyotes and bighorn sheep ripe for their claws, their fangs, their bellies. Any meat they don't eat will sell with the pelts and whatever they create from the bones.

As they run the perimeter their scent will soak the earth, and if they come across anything that should _not_ be so close to their Gates, well...

Hunts are always more satisfying, fun, beneath the full moon. That satisfaction only increases as they near Lusagaria, Kali's Alphan instincts a thick-sweet purr when she can protect and provide for her Pack in this way.

"Hey, Kali!" Mischief calls four buildings down the clay path, followed by a high, childish trill of, "Kiki-mama!"

Kali spins on her heel, already grinning. Thomas mutters beside her, good-humoured gruff, "Yer pups, Kali, never can seem to stop yappin'."

"Hah hah," she says, "that sure is rich, coming from you."

He shrugs with his whole body, unprotesting.

"Kiki-mama," Elodie trills again, as soon as Mischief has carried her close enough, and makes grabby-hands. Mischief obligingly holds the little girl out for Kali to take with a wry look about his eyes.

"Yes, ma'am?" Kali says, scooping Elodie up and twirling her around - to her whooping delight - before perching her on her hip.

"Mischief ran away even though he's grounded and he was supposed to be baking with me an' now he says he's got something to tell you and our cakes are probably going to burn 'cause he's a big, stupid, _meanie head!"_

"I—wha—you—" Mischief gapes at her, scandalized. Then he rallies, seeming surprised about it: _"Tattletale!"_

Elodie sticks her tongue out at him.

Mischief narrows his eyes, "Ohhh, _you_..."

Thomas glances at Kali, very slowly raises his eyebrows. Kali ducks a kiss into Elodie's hair to keep from outright laughing.

"To be fair," Kali says at last, "he was only grounded for a few weeks, and we're coming up on two months, now." 

She gives Mischief a completely guileless once-over, telegraphing her movements as she reaches out to lift both of his arms, poke his ribs, toss aside his pig-tails to check his ears. Mischief endures this with a strangely submissive grace, sad understanding in his black tea eyes. "He seems okay," Kali declares, tilts her face down to Elodie's, "were you worried?"

Elodie presses her lips together and picks at Kali's shirt buttons. Julia answers for her, firm, "Yes."

Mischief goes all guilt in that way of his, "Sorry. I—. My packbonds went crazy all of a sudden and I kind of just went without thinking."

Kali and Julia both grimace, sharing a troubled look.

"'S okay," Elodie says sullenly. Flutters her gaze to his and away butterfly quick. "Was your Pack, um. What was wrong?"

"Well," Mischief says on a sigh. He locks eyes with Kali, grave and resolute, "Laura Hale is officially the new Hale Alpha. She took Talia's Alpha Spark — _without_ killing her — I, uh, I might've helped."

There is a stretch of stunned silence.

_"... WHAT?"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter: *sniffling* my sweet baby's monologuing, look at her go *waves handkerchief proudly*  
> ///  
> Stiles: look, i know i'm normally a roundabout bastard but something happened that's kind of a Big Deal, so fuck my conflation issues, i am finally going to be completely forthright and honest——  
> Literally Everyone: dude, where's the blood? do i need my first-aid kit? wait, you're not actively dying where you stand???  
> Stiles: ........
> 
> _Soulhugs~~~_


	25. New Foundations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so many of the soulhugs~~~~~ I hope this reaches you in good health and you can garner some enjoyment from it, I love, love, love you guys to the ends of the earth, xoxoxo
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Grief, PTSD, brief mention of Gore/external Body Horror-ish?, Bigotry & Prejudice, Old Ren being icky

Kali, of course, immediately descends into freaking out.

She is a very pragmatic Alpha, in her way, and Laura's inheritance will change _so much._

Talia was the head of the whole region, with the oldest and strongest Pack behind her; how will they fare now that Laura has stepped into her shoes? Will the treaties still hold? Will the _region_ still hold?

And Talia isn't even _dead._ How the hell is that supposed to work?

Mischief and Julia are sitting on the steps of the bone-house, watching as she paces and tears at her hair and mutters drastic predictions under her breath. Elodie's run back to the kitchens out of sheer boredom and frustration at still being too young to be included in these things. Kali's Howlers are bunched up around the mouth of the footpath leading out to the Gate, rowdy amongst each other, letting her process and waiting for their cues.

"Why aren't _you_ freakin' out about this, pup?" Kali hears Thomas ask Mischief in her periphery.

Mischief waffles a hand. "I have a plan," he says, shoulders shifty. He amends a second later, "Mostly it's just waiting and watching and stepping in if I have to. I know how to deal with the Argents if they try to fuck the treaty over this, I'm fairly certain Hadassah and Deucalion will listen if I beg them to give Laura a chance, and — you know. With Kali goes Ennis' nation. If any of that falls through..." Mischief's eyes go distant. "I'll think of something," he says, vaguely.

Kali's blood begins to calm. He will, she has absolutely no doubt that he will.

The likelihood of the Hale region making it has suddenly spiked very high in her mind, Gods be thanked.

"Sure," Thomas says; not a dismissal, that singular word holds a wealth of faith. "But yer whole Pack must be in upheaval, yeah? What with a new leadin' lady an' all, even if the old one's still alive an' kickin'."

"What?" Mischief says, sounding baffled. His eyes travel around, looking for support or anyone rebutting Thomas' claim. He laughs nervously when he only finds Thomas and Julia and Kali all staring at him, expectant. "I'm not — they aren't my Pack."

"But you're a Hale," Kali says. It's _common knowledge._ Nearly everyone on the continent who has heard tell of Mischief believes this, knows it, can read it clear in every action he's ever taken.

"Uhm," Mischief hiccups another nervous little laugh. "No?"

Julia's face furrows, "But didn't you leave because your packbonds were—"

"That's—" Mischief waves his hands emphatically. "No, I have packbonds with two guys _within_ the Hale Pack, but that's a recent thing. My Pack—" his breath abandons him. His scent is a bookshelf brimming with texts, wrenched from its ancient home and carried to the edge of a cliff to be hurled brutally into the crashing waves below. His scent sinks, warps, rots, until it is thick and awful in the air.

Kali can feel her Howlers still and straighten behind her.

 _"Mischief,"_ Kali whispers, the whine caught in her throat drenching his name.

Mischief blinks, swallows hard, murmurs, "My Pack is dead." Julia makes an alarmed, wounded noise beside him, Thomas flinches violently, the rest of Kali's Howlers drink in the air and move closer. If someone were to give them a culprit, a target, they would be gone in an instant; fiercely willing to avenge a friend that they know they could never soothe. "Long dead."

Kali walks over to him.

"May I touch you?" Because she knows, by now, to ask.

Mischief looks etched from absolute grief. "Yeah," he says, small.

She crouches down so that they're level and cups his face in her hands. "I hope you know—" she says, and the words lock in her throat, twist like a rusted key. She snarls at herself and bends their foreheads together. "We're yours," she breathes. "You know that, Mischief? In all the ways that matter, we're yours."

Mischief's lungs begin to sound like sandpaper rasping against bone. "Why?" he asks, like he's begging for something. _"Why?"_

He's trembling against her palms, her fingers, her crown. His eyes are screwed desperately shut.

Kali can't find the words to answer him. Her eyes flutter shut, too. She feels akin to all of the wood and parchment and ink in his scent: drowning in the sea, her throat become a pillar of saltwater.

"Because we love you," Julia cries softly. "Because you're so close to Pack it's _stupid."_

Mischief chokes on a low, wet laugh. Kali sniffles on the edge of a smile.

"Mischief?" she whispers. "I am _so sorry."_

Neither of them moves or speaks for a long time. They both simply hover there, close together, mourning. "Kali," comes at last, hollow-ache.

"Yes."

"Aren't you supposed to be hunting right now?"

Kali's lips hitch, and she lets herself lean back to sit on her heels, opening her eyes. "I figured this was more important."

Mischief is looking at her like it's still a struggle believe that despite — _everything._ He presses his fingers against his gas mask until it must be digging into his skin. "You're losing daylight," he says.

She shrugs, flashing a cocksure grin, "Hunting by moonlight's more fun, anyway."

He seems to hesitate, eyes pools of sunburnt quicksand. "I—. Could you promise me something?"

"What?" Kali asks, with no real intent of denying him.

"If, someday, I tell you to stop, or — or to _not_ do something... can you promise me you'll listen? No questions asked, just—. At least for a little while?"

A breeze passes them by, flutters through their hair and their lungs. Kali thinks that maybe he needs this from her, in the deep, harrowed way a starving man needs food. She wonders why. She wonders if he'll ever tell her.

"Okay," she agrees. "I promise; by Mother Moon and all the land before me, I promise."

Mischief is pale and fragile-looking. He shudders. "Thank you," he says, heavy and relieved. "Alpha. Thank you."

Kali's irises are consumed by red, her heart softened and hopeful, she clasps her hands on his knees, "No problem at all, kid."

She rises from the ground with a significant look at Julia, who nods firmly, tears raining down her cheeks. Kali offers her a faint smile and turns to her Howlers. They'll need to have a Pack meeting tomorrow, but for now: she lifts her head up to the dusk-darkened sky and howls. Her Howlers howl with her, raise an unholy din as they move to open the Gates.

For now, they _hunt._

* * *

Stiles watches Kali and her Howlers run off into the sunset with a mistified numbness.

He feels a hand fold gently into his. "Your packmates," Julia says softly. "Two Hales."

"Yeah." And a Nemeton, but nevermind.

"Tell me about them?"

For a moment, Stiles falters, because he honestly doesn't know if he _can._ The Peter and Derek that he knew no longer exist. The ones he is now bonded to he's been too — afraid? Sad? Fucked up to really interact with for more than five seconds at a time.

He is still afraid and sad and _monumentally_ fucked up. But he can't go on avoiding them; not only because he wants, with a strange intensity, to be able to answer Julia's questions unhesitatingly in the future, but because he's pretty sure he's officially learned his lesson about turning a blind eye.

Fucking Talia. He could've helped them so much sooner if he'd only been _paying attention._

He stands, pulling Julia up with him by their interlocked hands. "Let's put a pin in that," he says, assuming the cheerful. "Come on, I think we've got some burnt cakes to deal with."

Julia smirks dimly, "Nunna wouldn't let your cakes burn."

"Oh, yes she would. It's the perfect opportunity for a lecture Jules, she wouldn't pass that up for the _world."_

Julia chuckles, shaking her head, and knocks their shoulders together.

(He's lucky, after all that, to not have had a panic attack today. Still, when he sleeps he will dream of fire and death and a heart beating its last against the curve of his palm.

He'll wake up to Julia, face full of exhaustion and worry. She'll force him to get up, make a pot of hot chocolate with her, drink it on the couch over a black and white rom-com with her, and they'll fall asleep again curled up together — dreamlessly.)

* * *

Renée Giliberto looks out at her Pack, and she sees that it is soiled.

All of the dignities they had enjoyed under Bacchus' and then Aapep's rule have been blotted out by Kali's corruption. Renée is so disgusted to be surrounded by these soulless shells, and now there is a _Kanima_ amongst their ranks! It's unconscionable.

Now, everyone is preparing for Lusagaria. They are working together and paying no heed to a feeble old woman, so she makes sure to hunch and waddle and seem cowed by this new environment when she is anything but. She is biding her time.

Renée Giliberto looks out at her Pack, and she sees the ones whose minds are in her likeness. And she gathers them to her in ways that are subtle and innocuous.

Her grandson, she thinks, will look beautiful with his irises painted red.

Soon.

Her gaze catches on the abomination and her tongue laves over her wolven teeth.

_Soon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this chapter was a little short, but i hope you liked it! _soulhugs~_


	26. At Dawn, We Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I hope this chapter reaches you in good health, be as safe as you can be out there folks, I love you guys, xoxoxo
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Old Ren & her fam being shady/icky af, kind of excessive foul language, Bigotry & Prejudice, Pack Politics, brief mention of Religious Politics

As the rosy-cheeked daughter of day begins to hush-up the night, Kali gathers the chief members of her Pack to herself: Julia, her Emissary, Thomas and Kyrie, the heads of her Howlers, Winifred, high priestess of Mother Moon and head of the creche keepers, James, high priest of Dirgen and head of the grave keepers, Raamah, high priestess of Paleadnysa and head of the bone women, Nunna, low priestess and head of the cooks, Art, low priest and head of the gardeners, Dante, head of the tanners, Nikolaj, head of the tailors, Mabel and Hugo, heads of the housekeepers, and Gilbert, Miriam, Kizzy, and Erik, who speak for the Betas.

Before the meeting begins, Mischief says half-wistfully, "If I could be a fly on the wall..."

"You don't have to be," Kali tells him, tone leading, "you could just _come in."_

Mischief stares at her. "But I'm not Pack."

Kali heaves a sigh and goes to stand next to him. They're on her front porch, the creche visible two blocks to their left, Roscoe's massive body a blur of surprisingly fast movement over the wide footpath in front of them as he chases the chickens into a squawking frenzy. The goats are all piled together in clumps, lazy and slumberous, watching the show. Elodie's curled up with a quilt on the glider near the door; that girl could fall asleep anywhere, honestly.

"You could be," Kali says, "if you wanted."

She breathes in the air, clear and sweet, listens to the morning birds as they start to sing beyond the chickens' grouching and Roscoe's joyed snuffling. She doesn't look at Mischief.

"I have Betas with packmates in other Packs, you know. It's not that unusual. Especially when some of them married into my Pack from another. And — we could _never_ replace your old Pack, we would never try. But you're family already, Mischief. Even if you don't become... ours, the way that I—. You're like a little brother to me. That's not going to change anytime soon."

Mischief knocks their shoulders together and she slings an arm around the back of his neck, him tilting his head into her for a small sideways hug.

"I'm a pretty shitty brother," he murmurs.

"That is _such_ a lie," Kali says. "Who told you that? I'll kill them."

Mischief chuckles softly.

"Being a part of a Pack again..." he says. "Maybe someday."

Kali grins to herself and presses her cheek against the top of his head, "Looking forward to it."

"What are you going to do?" he wonders, shifting to look at her.

Kali exhales deeply, "I'm going to see how they all feel, but I want the region and the treaties to hold — so do Julia, Nunna, and most of the others. Erik and Nikolaj might pose some resistance, but if they do they will be _laughably_ outvoted."

Mischief's eyes glitter a smirk, "And you're the Alpha."

"And I'm the Alpha," she agrees with a smirk of her own.

* * *

Erik leaves the meeting unsatisfied and enraged.

To be so bound to other Packs and Hunter Clans is fucking offensive. Just look at what has come of it! See, how Laura's ascendence is affecting them already; they will have to go to the Hale packlands and meet with the Hales and the Edingers, with Deucalion's and Hadassah's people, with the piss-fucked Argents. They will have to re-sign that farce of a treaty, which, in the end, is only a flimsy piece of paper that the Hunters will never adhere to.

All for what? For _peace?_

How does laying on their bellies to be the Hales' and the Argents rutting bitches afford them this Gods' forsaken peace? 

They should keep to their own place, that would serve peace better — but even here they are unsafe, after Kali's rule. Everywhere he looks, there is another blue-eyed, soul-scarred animal stalking his territory. It's revolting.

He prowls through the red clay alleys with Nikolaj, chewing on his cigarette. He kicks Bobby awake when he sees him, the man passed out drunk in some corner.

"Get the others," he says.

Bobby scrubs his face with his dirty fucking hands. His skin's like badly aged parchment covered in grease. Erik hates him, but Grandmama says he's got his uses, and he'll grant that he does.

"Where to?" Bobby asks, gravel-rasp.

"Where the fuck you think, Gods' damn your puny shit brain, huh?" Erik snarls.

"Don't have to be mean about it," Bobby grouses as he gets up.

Erik flashes his eyes with an I'll-eat-you-for-breakfast growl. A burst of satisfaction wells in his gut when Bobby cowers, his wretched wolven eyes flashing back: _blue._

"Go on," Nikolaj cuts in, shoving Bobby's fear-frozen body away from them. He looks askance at Erik, "You really don't have to be so mean about it," he says.

"I've got no time for your honeyed words, Nikki. 'Specially not with some blue-eyed freak."

"Hm," Nikolaj says, an odd glint to his seashell-grey eyes.

"You're going to have to get rid of that soft heart of yours, cousin," Erik says with a nasty grin, "when you become my Left Hand."

"You mean when I ruin my soul for you," Nikolaj says, face turned away, stone-stoic.

"Don't think I'm not grateful," Erik tells him, kinder by some small measure. He really _is_ grateful; he understands the sacrifice Nikki's making for him here, crippling his soul for the sake of their Pack. Still, there's nobody else he'd trust more to walk at his side half alive.

"I don't," Nikolaj says softly. "Not for a second."

They arrive at Grandmama's squat cement brick house minutes later and Erik puts out his cigarette in her petunias.

"She's gonna flay you for that," Nikki warns.

"Nah," Erik laughs, careless.

"Boys," Daisy greets them as they sweep on through the table room.

Erik lays a kiss on her crown and another on the toddler she's got bouncing in her lap, "Daiz. How many in?"

"Not many yet," Daisy says distractedly, doing something magic with a needle and thread that Erik'll never understand, but Nikolaj seems to be inspecting approvingly. Surrounded by fucking seamstresses and tailors he is, Gods save him. "Your Grandmama's down there, though."

Erik twinkles his fingers at the babe, "Okay. You're the best Daiz."

"Uh-huh," Daisy drawls, disbelieving. "Keep walkin' charmer."

"So hard to please," Erik sings as he heads down into the bunker. No sound can be heard outside of the sealed door, and nobody comes in but those that Grandmama has vetted thoroughly.

Not one blue-eyed has ever set foot in Grandmama's house.

The sense of security and thrill Erik gets from that is unspeakable, powerful; he can't wait until the day he can overthrow Kali and cleanse his Pack, make it _safe_ again.

Everything is cement and fluorescents down here, with woven benches and wide cushions surrounding the silk rug that Grandmama gave his parents as their wedding gift. The rug depicts the wrath of Zeus against Lycaon, a pious tribute to the _proper_ faith.

Erik goes to Grandmama immediately, seeing that she's been waiting for them, but Nikolaj takes his time; he greets every person in the bunker, though there aren't many, and he scents them and speaks with them all before he comes to Erik and Grandmama. Erik shakes his head with a slight scoff.

"Kolka," Grandmama says, low-sharp. She doesn't like Nikolaj's soft heart any better than Erik does, though _she_ tends to think he's scheming, which is as silly as she'll ever allow herself to be, Erik supposes. "The meeting."

Nikki cants his head, lightly submissive despite the strength of his stance, and gives her a clean, concise report. No embellishments or personality, just the blandest information in full. 

Erik'll never get over his cousin's memory, half the shit he says sparks an _oh, yeah, that did happen, didn't it?_ No fresh air will ever whisk through the chambers of Nikolaj's mind; it's some weird-ass superhuman shit. What's that saying civilians have? Like an elephant, or a steel-trap?

Nikolaj finishes with the slightest wry tilt to his mouth, "In summary, they are treating this like yet another region uniting incident. The hope is that, if there _are_ any major changes, they will be beneficial to Kali's Pack in the long run."

Grandmama hums, her eyes narrowed in the middle-distance. "We'll prove that pretty little assumption wrong soon enough."

"When?" Erik asks, dripping with impatience. "I am so tired of these fucking games, _Gods._ We need to strike."

"And we will," Grandmama assures him, clasping a hand on his shoulder. Her touch is so firm it borders on painful, but it is familiar and so it is beloved. "Did you run into Bobby on the way here? Are the others coming?"

"Yeah."

"Good," she says, grinning wolfishly. "They'll want to know what's going on, what we plan to do."

"And what," Nikolaj wonders, Beta soft, all respect and adherence, "do we plan to do, Grandmother?"

"We plan to take the throne," she says, patting their cheeks like they're boys again. "Under the blue moon of Lusagaria. When they least expect it."

Erik's blood beats hot and greedy. A scythe-blade grin cuts sharp across his face.

He can't _wait._

* * *

There is a parched beat of irritation inside his throat that doesn't belong to him, but Stiles is learning to ignore it.

 **Thirsty,** the Nemeton nags through their packbond.

 _And what am I supposed to do about that?_ Stiles thinks, _I'm still technically not allowed anywhere near you._

There's a moment of what could be called, on its very best day, after a makeover or three, hesitation. **Why?**

Stiles attempts to flood their bond with his memories of what happened after the Siren. Which gives him a headache, of course, because you're not _supposed_ to be able to communicate through packbonds. They're not spiritual substitutes for phone lines, for fuck's sake. An incredibly intimate relationship with your packmate could forge an empathic connection that might, if you're clever, allow for some trippy atmospheric sort of dialogue — but that's it.

Stiles is currently chanting two spells in his head simultaneously to bypass these limitations, because the Nemeton is like a spammer that won't quit and it's starting to impair his ability to function.

 **Change their minds,** the Nemeton demands. There's a shallow-whispered undercurrent, **it wasn't your fault,** that would read sheepish-guilty if it were anyone else. 

If it were a person at all.

 _It was,_ Stiles thinks, firmly. At the very least, not sharing what he was doing with the Hales, not thinking to protect them better, not warding the Nemeton well enough—— 

Deep breath. 

Stiles pushes the meeting of Alphas and Argents that's going to be happening soon through the bond. Kali invited him along. Talia's no longer Hale Alpha but her sentence over him still stands: as long as he leaves the Nemeton alone the Hales will continue to consider him their guest. And now that he's no longer holding with his own craven urge to ignore and to avoid, now that he has made a covenant with himself to keep a much closer eye on them, it shouldn't be that much of a leap to ingratiate himself to them.

Hopefully.

If they upgrade him from guest to friend maybe he'll be able to convince them on the Nemeton point?

**... I'll help.**

Stiles is startled out of his meditation so quickly that he lurches sickly where he's sitting on Kali's porch. _You'll **what?**_ he screeches in his head, but the communicative manner of their bond is long gone.

"Jesus fuck," he breathes, dizzy in the worst way. He leans back onto the sun-warmed wood and lies there, eyes closed, trying to let his stomach, head, and nerves settle.

Roscoe's with Julia and Elodie in the creche, Kali's making her rounds, and Stiles is waiting on his spy.

Fifteen minutes later, that spy finds him and says, "Nickle for your thoughts?"

"How about a Nickle for yours, Koljek?" Stiles returns, letting his mother tongue's accent skip across his tone like rocks across a pond.

Nikolaj watches him, face doing its best to seem empty, but Stiles lived or died on understanding the minutiae of Derek's expressions in the before-after and he can see the ghosts of heavy strain and budding relief and maybe-mirth there. 

At length, Nikolaj shrugs, hiding all of it. "Sure."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nikolaj attracts nicknames like moths to a flame, and let me tell you, I _have no idea how that happened._ He came on the scene and all of a sudden he's Nikki, Kolka (an affectionate diminutive used, in this case, derogatorily), and Koljek (polish-ish? maybe?). Goodness gracious, dude.
> 
> I hope you liked this chapter!! Superlove & soulhugs to all~~~~


	27. Kali Giliberto (Take II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, hello, hello; I hope all is well with you lot, I love you all enormously, and may this chapter offer you a few minutes of escape or enjoyment or etcetera, xoxoxoxoxo
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Old Ren being the _ickiest,_ discussion of Homicidal/Violent Intent Toward a Child, Rage, Gorey Thoughts (in Old Ren's direction), Violence, Stiles has PTSD & Panic Attacks

Nikolaj is a good spy to have.

Stiles is happy to have found him: he'd been shadowing Old Ren for days after their argument in the creche, having felt the stir of rebellion radiating off of her. It hadn't taken much to cotton onto her recruiting schemes — but then: the Siren, and new packmates, and preparations for Lusagaria, and _fucking Talia._

He'd gotten distracted.

But he'd remembered one, in particular, who had felt out of place amongst the steadily growing conspirators. For a moment after meeting Nikolaj he'd doubted himself, that maybe this one had only _seemed_ different because he'd reminded him of before-after Derek, but he'd shaken himself and gone with it. 

One conversation had led to two had led to an accord.

And despite Nikolaj playing his cards close to his chest - unwilling to divulge his own secrets where he might divulge others' - Stiles has, over the course of a few days, been able to observe the wealth of private distaste and contempt Nikolaj holds for his Grandmother (Old Ren), the strange over-indulgent affection he has for his cousin (Erik), and the way that he wholly _abhors_ their beliefs with the kind of vengeance that speaks to some deep-rooted underlying issues. 

For the purposes of their current relationship, Stiles doesn't really _need_ to know anything else; this is enough.

(But he can't help the way his curiosity pricks at him.)

* * *

Nikolaj delivers the news of his cousin's meeting with his usual thorough detail, cadence monotonous and dry, completely unbiased unless you know what you're looking for and you're willing to look _hard._

Stiles does look, as he hearkens, and he feels sick through and through his soul. The plan that Old Ren is brewing, the ambush, it starts with Elodie's body in the heart-spring; and the blood doesn't stop there. It just keeps on going.

The cracks in Nickolaj's mask weep harrowed, hard-restrained fury as he brings his report to a close. Then he notes Kali, or, more accurately, her absence.

Ah, shit-fucking hell.

"You haven't told her yet?" Nikolaj asks, his tone actually hinting at an emotion: incredulity.

"Well," Stiles says, pacing. "No?"

 _"Mischief,"_ Nikolaj returns.

Stiles winces.

He _knows._ He knows that he needs to tell Kali about the rot infesting her Pack, but — but what if this is it? What if this was the thing, in the before-after, that had pushed her over that edge? If he tells her...

If he tells her, what will she do?

What is she _capable_ of doing?

Again, he remembers eyes like freshly fallen snow, when every other packbond had blackened in death (but now there are three, whole and hale, shining within him). Again he remembers the end of the world, and a hand around his, and a voice telling him, _"In another life."_

No need to fear the daylight, time traveller. There's no military force to face or hide from, the supernatural world is still hidden, still safe.

No need to fear the air; none of the Nemeta have been set ablaze yet. The Hales haven't burned. The other large, powerhouse Packs haven't burned. The air is still _clean._

And Julia and Kali, who have become like sisters to him — he can admit that now, he thinks, that they are the big sisters he'd never known he wanted; never known he needed.

No need to fear them, either, huh?

He has worked so _hard_ to keep this world from becoming that one. And this world _isn't_ that one. Things are different here, new, and surprisingly unexpected.

He'd decided to be truthful with them from now on, he needs to maintain that; and Kali gave him her word that if he asked, if he needed her to, she'd stop. So if it _does_ come to that...

Stiles inhales deeply.

Kali needs to know what's going on inside of her Pack.

"Well," Stiles says, steeling himself, "let's go tell her."

Nikolaj seems vaguely uneasy about being dragged along, but he follows without protest.

* * *

"Kiki-mama," Ramaah says, all wry and teasing, "you've got pups incoming."

Kali turns away from checking the bone women's work to see Mischief and Nikolaj entering the bone-house, heading for her. She spares a moment to wonder why Mischief is with _Nikolaj,_ of all people, but that curiosity is put away the second she sees the look in Mischief's eyes.

Her concern only rises when he leads her outside without answering any of her questions, making sure she's away from as many prying ears as he can before he says, "So, I've maybe got some bad news."

Her heart tightens in her chest.

Nikolaj - _Nikolaj_ \- gives Mischief a slanted look.

"Okay," Mischief concedes, "it might actually be a little bit worse than that."

Kali feels herself straighten, steel building in her spine. "Tell me," she demands.

He tells her: Old Ren has been planning to overthrow her ever since she had the _audacity_ to adopt a Kanima child into her Pack; she has, in fact, been collecting packmates in Kali's opposition ever since she inherited the Alpha Spark. She wants Erik, her grandson, to become the new Alpha. She wants all the fucked up laws of Kali's father restored.

Nikolaj had found himself entrenched deeply in the mire by virtue of being Erik's beloved cousin, but he'd never intended to allow their success. And so, Mischief had managed to acquire a spy.

(She would ask why he didn't come to her sooner, but - beneath the blinding fury, _because_ of the blinding fury - she thinks she knows.)

Now they know when the conspirators plan to strike: on the eve of Lusagaria; and they know how: with the death of a child.

With the death of _Elodie_ — her blood to soil the heart-spring, to ruin the symbol of Kali's ancestors' faith, to rid the Pack of what _they_ see as fucking _abominable._

Kali seethes, breath a heaving growl, sight pulsing with red - _that Gods forsaken scum-fucked bitch_ \- red - _Spiral, Spiral, God of vengeance_ \- red - _I want to chew on her windpipe, swallow her pulse._

There is a swarm inside of her made up of venomous moths with flames for wings; they burn her belly to cinders, and they nip at her heels until she flies where they're bidding. 

Her thunder rolls through the clouds of her packbonds, an Alphan bellow, a call to arms, until she feels as if they are all marching together toward the object of her ire.

She cannot hear anything over the sound of her own heart beating, over her wardrum wrath and her incensed conviction.

Old Ren's scent is smoke and fireflies, Kali catches it on the breeze of providence and _salivates._ That bitch is gonna die today; at her hands, by her claws.

But when she finds her, right there, _so close_ — and all of her Pack is with her, she can _feel_ them — Mischief is suddenly blocking her path. Vengeance pulses in her veins, her mind's eye consumed by its Spiral.

"Stop," he says. No; the word isn't simply spoken. He's begging. He's _been_ begging.

 _Little brother,_ her heart whispers beneath its heated rhythm, _why are you crying?_

Vengeance is still in the height of her consciousness: those fiery moths beating their wings an inferno, her fangs itching insistently, her blood shivering impatiently on the brink — but she stops. Her legs halt. Her rage can wait.

The world seems a hornet's nest, buzzing.

"Kali," Mischief laments as he approaches her, achingly and confoundingly desperate. His hands tremble, and he reaches for her, cradles her face in them anyway. "Please," he breathes, bending their foreheads together, familiar, soothing. "I need you to just—. I need you to be the _good guy,_ okay? For me."

How, she wonders, would killing Old Ren keep her from being a 'good guy'? Isn't she justified, for being what she is, for facing this disgusting threat, for keeping her Pack safe?

Maybe. Maybe she is — but this isn't about that, is it?

"If I asked you to kill her instead," Kali hears herself say, low and growl-ridden, "if I asked you to kill her _for me_..."

"I'd do it in a heartbeat," Mischief answers instantly, fierce.

"But I can't do it?"

Mischief sucks in a harsh breath and presses his forehead harder against hers. "No."

Kali — does not let herself ask why. She's known for a long time now that Mischief isn't good at trust, isn't good at people, but he's _trying_ with them. This is part of that, somehow.

And she did promise him, didn't she? That she would stop, unquestioningly, if he ever told her to.

This is him telling — it's her move, now.

"Okay," she sighs. "Okay, Mischief."

He releases a breath like a sob as she rolls her forehead off of his and turns away from him to see the horde of packmates that have gathered.

(What she does not see, behind her, is Nikolaj catching a fretted Old Ren roughly by the arm when she tries to back away, to run.

She spits on his face. His temper and his grip are like stone. He does not even deign to look at her. "Your due has come, Grandmother," he says softly.

"You're a bastard," she bites back in an undertone, "a true bastard. Siding with _her?_ Over your _real_ family? Your Mama would be ashamed."

"You assume the expectations of the dead too much," Nikolaj tells her, seashell eyes jagged. "Mom—. You can't speak for her, when you _left_ her the way you did."

"She deserved it," Old Ren hisses. "And so did you."

Nikolaj presses his mouth shut tight and, grimly, allows her the satisfaction of the last word.)

Kali lifts her head up to the sky and howls that they may hear her still boiling anger, her gratitude for those that are loyal to her and came when they knew they'd be needed, her frustration, her pain. Her Pack howls with her, and the comfort in it, the understanding, is immense.

When the last wolven song has quieted, Kali addresses them: she feeds them everything she knows about Old Ren's planned revolution, and their faces darken, their growls rise in a wave-crashing sea of sympathetic condemnation. "I confess," she cries over them, "that when her plans were revealed to me, I wanted nothing more than to see her deprived of all her vital organs. You know what? I still want that. But tonight — tonight I concede to mercy."

The growls begin to hush, every ear listening closely.

"We all know the story of the first werewolves, the _vargr,_ who were outcasts and murderers and thieves. Who made mistakes, but were given a second chance when Mother Moon came down and spoke to them in their dreams. And she told them: 'Do not clothe your feet or your head, only keep walking. Trust in me and yourself, and I will lead you, and you will find the means to survive.' Then when they found Paleadnysa, bearing the weight of the moon on Their shoulders, and They offered them the water in the crater of Their pawprint, they knew to drink because they knew the moon had led them there.

"So then they had fur to be warm, bodies to hunt food at better ease, and Pack. Mother Moon shone through their irises, and through Her and Paleadnysa they were able to survive; they were able to redeem themselves, even if that redemption changed them forever. Paleadnysa bears the moon on Their shoulders and so do we; we _endure,_ because that is what we must do to _survive._ And we were made to survive."

Kali moves to look at Old Ren, held fast by Nikolaj.

"You will suffer for what you have done," she tells the old woman. "But have no doubt that you will survive.

"I name you vargr, Renée Giliberto, I name you outcast. And you must walk as our ancestors did under the light of the moon."

Her voice carries even as her Pack descends, ripping away Old Ren's shoes. Renée Beta-shifts to fight, a bad mistake: it only makes her enemies' jobs easier. They smash her fangs with rocks and blunt her claws, they hold her down kicking and screaming so that Julia can administer the mountain ash solvent that will turn her claws a sickly black and keep her from shifting them back to human.

She is become a wild animal, declawed and fangless.

"Help them find her friends," she tells Nikolaj, toneless, "they are vargr now, too."

Nikolaj's only hesitation is a slight shift in his shoulders and a thick swallow, but he nods his agreement sharply and goes to accomplish his task.

There is a moment of intense static in his and her Pack's and Julia's absence, of _nothingness_ as she stares at what has become of Old Ren.

"You cunt," the old woman commences, full of gravel and horrified righteousness. Before she can say anymore Mischief throws a handful of mountain ash at her.

"Walk," he says, merciless, as she coughs and sputters through the black powder. "Maybe you will find an Old God to help you."

She sneers, but a cloud of mountain ash prevents her from speaking, nearly prevents her from breathing, and she is forced to choose: walk away or suffocate. She walks.

"Vargr," Mischief says. "Does that mean they're Omegas now?"

"Of a kind," she tells him. "They could earn their way back."

"And if they tried to find another Pack..."

"They are vargr," she says firmly. "No one would take them."

"Kali," he says, sounding wretched, shaken. 

"Yes, little brother?" she wonders, assuming the cheerful.

He chuckles, small and wet, moving from her side to face her.

Kali watches in complete startlement, frozen, as he delicately begins to unfasten his gas mask. She has never seen him without it on, knows that he struggles to breathe over things that may seem innocuous to her on a regular basis, has been second-hand witness to his panic attacks through Julia. She's always wondered _why_ he wears it: does it help keep the panic attacks at bay? Is something else the matter that they don't know yet?

Another mystery, curiosity, that she'd long since let go to the wind.

That swarm of moths in her belly had wrapped themselves in a cocoon of patience and are reemerging now in a flurry of snow-soft, sugar-sweetness; transformed into air creatures, flower kin, closely related to nerve-wrecked happiness.

It is so _strange_ to see his full, bare face. He looks fresh and new yet still familiar. She thinks he'd have dimples, if he smiled. She finds unique joy in the discovery of freckles.

He takes her chin in his free hand and does that small, simple blessing that everyone in her Pack knows: kissing her right eyelid, her left, and then the middle of her forehead.

"Alpha," he says—

The packbond clicks—

She gets caught in the whirlwind of _outrageous_ power, just for a second, as the interwoven ball of packbonds in the centre of her being becomes a fucking _super nova._ Her lungs constrict, her vision whites out, her world's axis tilts a little in another direction.

She breathes.

The feeling passes.

Mischief has retreated back inside his gas mask, hunched down as he presses it harshly into his face and shudders with every shallow-rasp inhale and exhale.

 _"If he ever has a panic attack in while he's with you,"_ she remembers Julia lecturing her, stern and full of worries. Kali is so grateful for her instruction that she suddenly finds herself willing to endure every single blessing and ritual her Emissary could ever want to bestow.

"Mischief," Kali says, lullaby-calm, and she tells him the date, tells him where he is, tells him her full name and his — does not touch him. 

"I'm fine," he murmurs in a cracked voice eventually, when his anxiety is back in its box and his lungs have returned to working order.

"I am starting to live in fear of hearin' those two words come out of your mouth," Kali admits wryly.

Mischief goes to her and leans his head on her shoulder, exhausted. "That's probably fair."

"Mmhmm," she says, and then scents the fuck out of him, blitzed on the thrill of having her new Beta all to herself.

"Werewolves," he mutters fondly under his breath.

Kali makes a bright noise of nevermind-agreement and continues with her scenting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the rest of the pack: woah, i feel like i just ate a freaking rainbow  
> julia, grinning from ear to ear: hell yeah, you do, now come on -- we got conspirators to maim
> 
> I hope you liked it!!! All the soulhugs!!!


	28. Interlude/Intermission (End of Act III)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am _fairly_ certain that there are no trigger warnings for this one.
> 
> I love you guys, hope you're all doing well, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!!! xoxoxo

For a year and a half, all that had been left of Stiles' packbonds had been thick, hardened scar tissue.

For some time before that, it'd been him and Peter alone.

Having Peter and Derek (again, but different this time) and the Nemeton there, singing beneath his heart, had been strange. There'd been relief, in a way, like cracking open a jar that's been sealed shut a long time, and with a hissing pop all the stale old air releases so that fresh air can come in. 

There had been pain. 

Imagine if your heart fell asleep - if it _could_ fall asleep, like a limb, without killing you - and you only tried waking it back up a year and a half later. That's probably as close as Stiles will ever get to being able to explain it.

Sharp, white-noise shattering that eventually morphed into sweet-ache tingling.

Bonding with the whole fucking Giliberto Pack, though?

Suffice it to say that he's a little _overwhelmed._

He's maybe happier and lighter than he has been in a very long time — but God _damn._

So he lets Kali coddle him a little more readily than usual. Measures the length of his breath with hers as they walk, arm in arm, leans on her so that his trembling legs won't falter, basks in the rosy warmth of their newly formed packbond.

Peter and Derek's packbonds had shifted from curious worry, to alarmed worry, to some semblance of wry-relaxed over the course of the evening — he wonders what they'd felt, what they _are_ feeling, from him. He's never had packbonds outside the limits of Pack before, so it's going to be a bit trial and error figuring out how it all works. Most of his walls are still up, at least, but he's pretty sure a few have crumbled to dust while he wasn't looking.

And he — will deal with that later.

The Nemeton, who had been radio silent since their last conversation, is now radiating a somewhat unsettling degree of smugness: that, he can't do anything about until he discovers Laura's position on it all, with Talia out of the picture and Stiles intent on making a concerted effort to get to know the Hales better and to be more... forthcoming.

As he and Kali move through the compound toward the march of the vargr, the world seems distilled. He's too occupied with the raw novelty of the vivid golden and blue threads within him for conversation, and she's happy enough to give him over to his silence, humming to herself and nuzzling the side of his head from time to time.

Night has fully taken over the sky, all glamorous darkness, milkyway frills, and starlight pearls. There is no manmade light to dampen it, here, in the middle of the desert, amid the company of werewolves.

Stiles breathes in the darling-silk air and feels his soul full; he looks over to Kali, who smiles beatifically at him.

 _Alpha,_ he thinks, smiling back. _Sister._

* * *

At some point, while he and Kali were diverted, the Pack's general atmosphere must have shifted from solemn duty toward celebration.

The main red clay road - the one that runs past Kali's place, the creche, and the courtyard before spilling like a tongue out the mouth of the Gate - is currently playing host to the march of the vargr; and it is absolutely _brimming_ with people. No eye is human in the lack-light. There are people dancing, there are people singing, laughing, and howling; a good percentage of them are drunk, the lot of them are indulging in the din.

To get to the actual procession, where Julia, Nikolaj, and the vargr will be, they must first get through the bulk of the crowd. It's easier than Stiles assumes it will be, based on the look of them. Perks of being with the Alpha, he supposes: the sea naturally parts.

It crashes together again at their backs, a foamy tide pulled by the moon, almost hypnotized to follow, to reach out and touch. Nobody touches _him,_ though, they've apparently gotten the memo that that's not a good idea, but a few address him.

The subject 'skittles' comes up _multiple_ times, to his utter bewilderment.

"My packbond tastes like the rainbow?" he asks Kali in a half horrified undertone after the sixth time one of his new packmates declares such a sentiment to him.

 _"Yes,"_ said packmate answers, fervently, before getting dragged away by a friend; the two women giggle and trip over themselves into the ether, quickly replaced by different bodies, an ever-changing current.

"Are they fucking with me?" he asks, "Or are they for real?"

"They're for real," Kali assures him, all mirth at his expense.

"Part of it is because you're — incredibly powerful," Julia chimes in, suddenly there to take up Stiles' other arm. Ah, looks like they've caught up. "Hi," she says, happy breathless, and kisses the side of his gas mask.

"Hi," Stiles returns, feeling her gush of giddiness as if it were his own.

"Your packbond," she carries on, "is... I can almost taste the rain on my tongue, or the clouds, and it's like all the colours that have ever erupted in the sky have been splashed across my soul — that's what you feel like. And I can't tell you how glad I am—. I am so _glad_ that I can feel you this way, Mischief." Her eyes, even cast in twilight, even human, are dazzling in their joy. "Thank you."

Stiles clears his throat of the emotion thickening it and ducks his head, unsure what to say to — all of that. It seems like a lot. Maybe too much.

Kali must notice, because she questions Nikolaj - as soon as she spots him - on how many conspirators are left; when he tells her that they've all been made vargr, meaning that Julia's part in the whole process is technically done, Kali bids her take Stiles and retire.

"I think Nikolaj and I can take handle the rest," she says, earning well-hidden surprise and pleasure from her new companion. "You two go. Sleep. You both look like you need it."

"Mmm," Stiles says, squeezing Kali's hand in thanks as Julia dutifully begins leading him away. "Koljek," he calls, before they're too far, "you did good, man."

Nikolaj offers him a rare smile, from stone to beneficent fairy in one fell swoop. For being Kali's distant relative, Stiles doesn't think he's ever resembled her more.

"Come on," Julia says. "Bed."

"Cookies first," Stiles tells her.

"Really?"

"I've had a long day. I deserve them."

"Okay," she agrees. "But you have to brush your teeth _really_ well after you're done."

"Where was this attitude when we were eating ice cream at two in the morning?" he asks, playful and teasing.

"You fell asleep before I could tell you!" she returns, all aghast.

"Uh-uh," Stiles says. "You totally nodded off first."

"Oh—" Julia starts, making noises of incomprehensible frustration.

Stiles chuckles, and feels — good.

Really good.

* * *

With the vargr all collected and marched safely out of the compound's Gates, Kali's focus can return to making arrangements for the meeting of the Hale region's Alphas (and the Argents' Clan Heads).

Laura, who had apparently intended a similar proposition, agrees readily; Deucalion, Ennis, and Hadassah consent the same, all of them eager to discover what Laura's ascension will mean for their alliances; Chris concedes to the thing on Victoria's behalf, his tone leaving Kali anxious to know whether or not the Hunters will try to deny them their treaties now that Talia's signature has become void.

She commissions Thomas and Kyrie to hold the fort while she and her delegation are away, and has Mabel and Hugo prepare the caravans for their journey.

Julia and Mischief are going to accompany her, as a matter of course (although Mischief had been more surprised than he had any right to be at his firm inclusion). Raamah and Dante, lush with fresh products to sell, wouldn't miss an opportunity to peddle to four other Packs for the world. Nunna is leaving Ruth in charge of the kitchens so that she can come along, and with her, Elodie. Gilbert, Miriam, and Kizzy are coming; so, too, is Erik's replacement, Lee.

(She invites Nikolaj, wanting to get to know him better after everything and to make sure that he's okay, but he refuses her with every civility.)

They all bundle into three separate caravans for the trip: Kali and her Mages in one, the bone woman, tanner, and cook in another, and the Betas in the last. Elodie refuses to be so confined, switching caravans at her own whimsical leisure (which is to say: whenever she finds an opportunity).

Mischief explores while Kali and Julia bicker over who should drive the first shift. Julia wins, and snatches the keys with a rare smirk that makes Kali stick her hands into Julia's hair and roughly twists them about until the soft, pale brown tresses resemble a rat's nest.

Julia narrows her eyes when Kali's done and hisses a small hex that leaves Kali ribbiting like a frog for the next five minutes.

"I was going to say don't vex the driver," Mischief begins, looking out at them with raised brows from the caravan door, "but, uh, don't vex the witch is probably more prevalent."

"Druid," Julia corrects immediately, nose raised high as she climbs in behind the wheel.

"Ribbit," Kali says, exasperated.

Mischief snorts and grabs her by the hand, lugging her inside their lofty vehicle and interrogating her about everything within it. "I used to have a jeep," he thrills, "but I've never been in anything like this."

"Ribbit," Kali repeats, helplessly, but her humour is already hugely improved. She's never seen Mischief's curiosity unspooling on the heels of such excitement, eyes wide and young, movements boyish and free.

She has gone from listening to whispered legends about him and suspiciously craving an introduction, to relearning him outside of the realms of gossip and coming to care, coming to worry. She has gone from speculating his being owned by an abusive Pack to knowing the full, terrible extent of his grief, selflessness, and loyalty. She has gone from stranger to friend, from his friend to his sister, from his sister to his Alpha.

And she can no longer imagine what her life had been without him in it.

Somehow, that feels like something she ought to be proud of — and so does seeing him like this: just... _living._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: if you're binge-reading this at some point in the future, now might be a good time to take a break, drink some water, eat a snack. Take care of yourselves!!! _soulhugs~_


	29. Reunions (Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love allllll your faces, and I hope this reaches you in good health; please be careful and safe out there, lovelies, xoxoxo
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Stiles has PTSD, The Sheriff is A Recovering Alcoholic, Mentioned Abuse-ish(??)

Stiles' consciousness slinks slowly back to the surface. 

He feels over warm, with the sun floating in from the window coating his skin, the luxurious velveteen blankets drenched in heat beneath him, and Julia dozing pressed up close, one of her willowy arms draped over his waist and her face snuffling into his ribs. A deep, vaguely familiar voice drifts back from the cab, complaining about how Talia would always make them wait at meetings like this so that she could make her _grand entrance._

She'd send in her Pack delegates to wait and speak with them for upwards of an hour, the voice says, before waltzing in herself, full-shifted, so that she could make a big show of her body's ability to go from wolf to human (and back again).

Stiles blinks his eyes open lazily, patting Julia's head because it's there and her hair's soft and he's still not all the way alive yet. Who is that person speaking, he wonders.

"That was if she'd bother to show up at all," Kali mutters. She sounds like she's in the cab, too; driving, probably. "We dealt with Peter _way_ more than we ever dealt with her. I think she resented having to waste her royal time on degenerates like us."

"Ah, fuck her, I always liked Peter better, anyway," the——oh, _shit,_ that's Ennis. "Guy knew what was what. Fucking hope Laura does, too. It'd suck balls if she was just Talia two-point-fuckin'-oh."

"She won't be," Stiles says, thoughts leaping to his mouth without any real input from his brain.

"You got some insider info on the puppy Alpha, too, little red?" Ennis asks, pretty jovial for someone Stiles bludgeoned into unconsciousness once upon a time.

And, _wow,_ has it been a long ass time since someone's called him by that epithet.

"Not really," he says, grunting softly as he shifts out from under Julia and pads over to lean in-between the narrow space separating the passenger and driver's seats. He squints out the windshield, "How close are we?"

"Five hours outside of Sacramento," Kali replies, reaching over Ennis to open the glove compartment and hand him the pack of Twizzlers she'd secreted away in there. "Got this for ya'."

"Thanks," he says, ruffling a scenting hand through her hair. She grins brightly at him. Stiles moves back to the sofa stretched out directly behind the driver's seat and begins picking at the plastic packaging, not so comfortable with taking off his mask for even short periods in front of their newly-annexed guest.

Said guest has turned in his seat to track Stiles' movements, "How can you be so sure she won't be just like her momma, then?"

Stiles rests his chin on his fist and gazes at Ennis, still sleep-hazy despite himself, "Because I'm not going to let her be."

Kali heaves a great sigh, "You know that's not your responsibility, right?"

"Hm."

"And neither is whatever Talia did to deserve her demotion — or, whatever she did in general while you were—. Look, kid, you've saved a lot of people in your time—"

 _Not nearly enough,_ Stiles thinks darkly directly before Ennis says, "Killed a lot of people, too."

Talk about salt in the wound, man. (Although there are some people he's damn proud of killing. Read: Gerard, the old Sacramento Alpha, a good portion of the Metzgers, etcetera.)

Kali takes a hand off the wheel long enough to hit Ennis upside the head and continues, "But you're not _omniscient._ There are toxic people all over this world and bad shit happens all the time. You can't be there for all of it."

"I should've been there for _this,"_ Stiles says, soft enough that, had he been in human company, not a soul would've heard him.

"Why?" Ennis wonders, matter-of-factly, before Kali can protest or persist.

_Because I have work to do and this is part of it. Because the Hale Region is **mine,** and so are all of the Packs within it, including yours. Because, in general, I have a duty of care._

Stiles only shrugs, "Who knows."

"Nobody but you," Kali concedes, tone kind. To Ennis, she says, "Let's leave it at that, huh?"

Ennis gravels a mild agreement.

Stiles goes back to picking at his Twizzlers. Ennis' Packlands being between the Giliberto Compound and Sacramento, Kali had warned him that they might be picking up Ennis and his trusted along the way, so Stiles isn't necessarily surprised by their newly-annexed guest, more that he managed to sleep through the annexing.

If he presses a hand to his heart he can almost _feel_ all of his packmates' hearts beating right alongside his. It's breathtaking and smile-worthy and, apparently, deep-sleep-inducing.

Julia lurches awake with a snort and a cough. She stares at everybody, hair looking like it's been struck by lightning, the slit of her eyes barely visible between her eyelids, clothes all a mess, and smacks her lip muzzily.

Stiles barely restrains a laugh, "You know, Jules, I don't think I've ever seen you looking so undignified."

She grumbles incoherently, bustles around for exactly four minutes, and then plops down beside him looking more put-together than anyone else in the caravan. The truly astonishing thing is that she manages this feat without employing any of her magic at all.

"Ugh," Kali says, "You are so annoying."

Julia smiles sweetly at her, "Would you like a repeat of yesterday, Alpha?"

"Gods above, no. Forget I said anything. Nevermind. Do you, and all, I'm driving."

Julia rolls her eyes and, with a wave of her hand, summons a partition of ivy between them and the cab. She keeps her eyes on the scenery outside and points a long, thin finger at the snack Kali gave him. "Eat," she says.

Stiles, grateful, manages to kiss her cheek and bolt down half of the pack before his need to breathe without dire visions of what the air in the before-after tasted like, how much and how many it _hurt,_ requires him to put his gas mask back on.

Julia pets him, soothing, and murmurs, "Good job, little brother. Now breathe. Just breathe."

* * *

Noah Stilinski has lately been made familiar with the mythos of the ever-fleeting, providential _Mischief._ Isaac's Angel. The apparition that'd visited him in his office so long ago, now, the one who'd given him his boys and Peter, the one who'd changed his life forever. The stranger who bears such a striking resemblance to his dead wife's memory, to his son.

And Noah is far from the first person Mischief has visited like that. He's far from the last.

Isaac, Stiles, and Scott still go to school with Matthew Daehler. They're friends with a boy named Boyd who carries whispers on his tongue from his sister that sound like fairy tales but aren't; they're friends with a girl named Erica who boasts about a red-hooded, gas mask wearing Puck visiting her three times and promising her that, in a few years' time, her epilepsy would be all better; they're fast becoming friends with Cora and Gabriel and Tadgh and too many of the Hale kids to count. Noah has come to terms with the fact that he's going to have to rip off the big supernatural-creatures-exist band-aid soon — the Hale kids are awfully cute, but they're also awful at hiding what they are, and Stiles, at the very least, suspects, if he hasn't figured it out already.

Laura has most recently been upgraded to 'Alpha' with their 'mischief-maker's' help.

Noah had known that Talia's behaviour was damaging, had begun recognizing it more and more after that first tragedy-induced interaction with her: the way she'd been treating certain aspects of her family... 

Noah had been friends with Peter alone at the time, and he'd been prepared, if it _had_ come down to it, to raid the morgue for the blue-eyed if a sudden craving for human flesh was something that they'd be plagued with after gaining their new eye-status. But they hadn't been, nor had they in any fundamental way changed beyond — well, beyond taking their first life. Against their will, no less.

Noah, if he were a wolf, would be blue-eyed. He does what he has to do to keep his town safe.

From his perspective, that's the same reason why _Peter's_ blue-eyed. And he realizes, with the information he's equipped with now, that this is why Peter had seemed so strangely relieved after he'd told all to Noah over burgers and coffee nearly half a year ago: he'd explained that he was blue-eyed, and why, and what that meant, with the cultivated expectation that - even if Noah _had_ accepted him being another species altogether - Noah wouldn't have accepted him being _blue-eyed._

Whereas Noah had just thought _soldier,_ and been done with it.

"You were scared out of your mind that you'd lose me as a friend, weren't you?" Noah had asked him sometime after he'd sussed all these things out, eyes narrowed and tone almost teasing.

Peter's a hard guy to figure, unless you've known him for a while. A polite smile can mean rage or disinterest, and his words are always so veiled, so subtle.

"I don't have many friends," Peter had said after a short silence, face averted.

That, when Noah had considered it, was true. Peter's got family for miles, but friends? He could probably count the number on one hand with fingers left over.

"Well," Noah had told him, "neither do I. And just so you know? Thinking I'd run off over something like that is bullshit and, frankly, kind of insulting. We clear?"

"... Yes, Sheriff."

Getting Peter to smile like an honest to God human being with actual (not faked) emotions is pretty goddamn amazing. It's practically tantamount to getting Melissa to hug you or getting Stiles to be completely unsarcastically enthusiastic about something for more than five minutes straight.

Talia, Noah thinks, is part of the reason why Peter is more politics and facade than he is genuine vulnerable feeling. 

Talia's beliefs have hurt her whole Pack, true, but Noah is a very single-minded sort of man when it comes to people he likes, and the all but invisible scars that woman has left all over her little brother are enough for him to deem her unforgivable.

It was Talia who had caused the Siren's blow to be even _more_ damaging than it had already been. Peter's well-hidden tumult, and his resolve to kill her if she kept on, knowing that nothing else would change his Pack's troubled circumstances, had been heartbreaking to witness.

All Noah had been able to do, was be there for him, as Peter had been there for Noah.

Laura rising up, desperate and knowing the same thing that her Uncle did, had been surprising. Hearing that Mischief had stepped in out of nowhere to help her, had not.

Standing outside of Beacon Hills' abandoned distillery with the rest of Laura's chosen delegates, Noah isn't expecting to see him again: Isaac's Angel.

He hadn't expected to be called to this meeting in the first place, but his friendship with Peter had apparently made him a candidate.

"This will be my first meeting with the other Alphas in the Hale Region _as_ an Alpha," Laura had told him. "Introductions, among our kind, are _incredibly_ important." She'd inhaled deeply. "I need to show them I'm not like Mom. Having you there — would help me do that."

"Okay," Noah had said, because he'd seen a flash in Peter's eyes that'd looked like the cousin of excitement and because he's a generally nosy person. He was literally being handed a _fly on the wall_ free card; he wasn't about to refuse it.

Laura had shaken her head with a small huff, "It won't be just this, though, Noah, I hope you understand. I'm... I'm inviting you into my council. This is — it's big. It's _Pack."_

"Look, kid," Noah had said, "I've been prepared to put my life, my career, and my family on the line for your Uncle and all his people since — pretty much since day one. I'm not underestimating the gravity of this. I'm in it. I'm _here."_

Laura had blinked. Peter had looked like he was having an exceptionally hard time holding back a smug-as-shit expression.

"You're not lying," Laura had said, as if stunned.

Noah had only raised his eyebrows. No. He was not lying.

And now he's here. On 'neutral ground'. About to meet a handful of Alphas and all of their most trusted with his own Alpha, his best friend, a Druid animal doctor, and about six others that he has a feeling he's going to be real familiar with by the time everything's said and done.

There's a part of him, like there always is, that wishes he were drunk right now. He does his best to ignore it.

The first Alpha to arrive and trade pleasantries with them is Deucalion. Deaton introduces him to the new Hale Alpha, and Laura immediately strikes up a philosophical conversation that makes Deucalion's whole countenance shine.

Deucalion's fellows mingle. There are only three left from Talia's old council: Peter, Helena-Mae, and Róisín. They're popular for being better known, but the newcomers soon begin to branch out, curious or shrewd or both.

Noah isn't shy about the fact that he's human, nor is he shy about his boundaries: leaning all up in someone's personal space to sniff out their species is a very special kind of not cool. Yes, he has a gun, no, he's not a Hunter; he's a cop.

Thirty minutes of socializing later he picks his way out of the crowd and finds Peter. "I want a beer," he says.

Peter hands him a can of coffee with a serene smile.

"Thanks, Hale."

"Of course, Sheriff."

"You see that one, over there?" Noah says, subtly tilting his chin toward the broad-shouldered young man chatting with a small group of people.

"Marco," Peter answers in a hushed undertone.

Noah grimaces, "Rubs me the wrong way."

Peter hums, considering.

A short time later, Hadassah and her troupe come drumming through. A pair of young twins, all sunrise hair and freckles and big, gap-toothed smiles tottle along with them. Deaton introduces the young mother to Laura with due formality, and Noah barely waits the appropriate amount of time before bullying his way toward the kids.

Their company vastly improves his mood and him winning their friendship has the additional benefit of Hadassah asking them to introduce him to her.

They're still speaking - a conversation that had begun with how Mischief had touched _her_ life, and had flowed into her initial idolatry of Talia, which had quickly gone sour once she'd realized what the woman was actually like - when three caravans rattle down the road.

Kali and Ennis, both, climb out of these, along with their cohort.

And among them, Mischief.

Honestly, Noah thinks, he should have been expecting that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ **Important Note :** In Canon: Deucalion went to this same distillery for peace talks with Gerard and was blinded (this was prevented by Stiles in the very first chapter), after, he was trying to recover from his wound in Deaton's animal clinic when one of his more rash Betas, Marco, tried to kill him for being weak-- in both his views on peace and his new disability. Marco is the first Beta Deucalion killed on his way to becoming the ''Alpha of the Alphas''/''Demon Wolf'' in the show.]
> 
> Sheriff & Peter brotp for the win -- next up: Mischief is not, in fact, a Hale, the Argents arrive, and we figure out what Roscoe's been up to
> 
> Soulhugs~~~~~


	30. The Question

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Trigger Warning :** Bigotry & Prejudice, Ableist Language
> 
> I know this one's a bit small, but I hope you all like it; much love!!! xoxoxo

Alan Deaton dutifully makes introductions between the two newcomer Alphas and Laura.

"Thank all the Gods," Ennis says, boisterous and brash. Whatever he means by that is lost when Kali kicks him in the shin and tells him to shut his dumbass up.

Mischief lags behind them with a brown-haired young woman. His sun-struck brass eyes travel over the faces in the crowd until they land on Noah's. Distressed surprise flickers through them, wars with fierce determination for a spell, then vanishes beneath the stronger emotion.

Noah offers an acknowledging nod.

Mischief hesitates, blinking rapidly, before nodding in turn.

A rash of curious confusion bordering on shock breaks out amongst the people present as the people joining begin to integrate. Noah hears snippets of hushed, frantic conversations: "But isn't he—?" "You've heard of him, haven't you?" "We've _all_ heard of him." "Why is he with _them,_ is what I want to know." "He's one of yours, isn't he? Why would he—" 

"But he's a _Hale,"_ is the general essence of the outcry.

Peter inhales as sharply as if a palmful of wolfsbane had been smacked and ground, like acid, into the flesh of his chest. Paling, his eyelids flutter shut.

"What's going on?" Noah asks him softly, concerned.

"—I," Peter murmurs, "need to do some PR. I'll be back with you in a moment." And he stalks off to settle the masses with his impeccable charm. Noah frowns after him.

Laura seems vaguely perturbed, too, although she's hiding it well.

Mischief, Noah notes, with a strange sort of dawning in his blood, has ruthlessly pressed himself into the herd. He's doing — well, pretty much the same thing Peter is: clearing up the misunderstanding.

He belongs to the Giliberto Pack, he tells them. 

Why did you do so much for the Hales, they ask, wondering if, perhaps, Kali had ordered him to do it for some hitherto unknown political purpose.

(This is when it clicks for Noah, in a way that it never could have before, one of those _you can't understand it while you're in it_ type things: almost every single thing Mischief has ever done has either directly or indirectly benefitted the Hale Pack in some way.

To the wolves, that would only mean one thing, wouldn't it? 

Pack.)

"No," Mischief explains, "I only became her Beta very recently. She couldn't have ordered me to do anything before."

Then, they demand again, perplexed, _why?_

Mischief crinkles his eyes, makes some empty witticism, and diverts their attention with a half-sarcastic, leading comment. He never actually answers their questions, but by the time he's done with them, they've completely forgotten why they ought to be frustrated by that in the first place.

 _Claudia,_ Noah's soul whispers. _Stiles._

It's just that he's so _similar._

Noah shakes himself and turns his mind toward yet more mingling, wanting to have a better handle on the situation, and wanting to do his part as Laura's token human. Gotta be seen and noted by the Edingers and Gilibertos, too, he reckons, before he can consider it a job well done.

Mischief and Peter weave in and out of the knots and whorls the various Packs have made. They don't interact with each other. They don't need to. They work the field expertly and, there is no doubt in Noah's mind, collaboratively.

He sees Peter growing animated as evening begins shading into night, his smiles becoming less tactic and more truth.

"Having fun?" he asks when Peter checks in on him again.

Peter's expression is the trained innocence of guilty people everywhere, "Whatever do you mean?"

 _It's like watching two kids play high stakes chess, is what I mean._ Noah raises his eyebrows with a shrugging smile, "Just wondering. You look — better — than you did earlier."

Peter's shoulders twitch slightly and Noah gets the impression that he'd be grimacing, if he were anybody else.

"It feels like something of a missed opportunity doesn't it?" Noah asks, sympathetic. For all that he's only a one-week-old Beta, for all that he's only had one interaction with the Hales' lucky star himself, even he can feel the strangely damning loss.

"Yes," Peter says softly, almost wistfully. "But I think it might be better this way."

"How so?"

Peter shifts his jaw, expression implacable. He is silent for several moments, chewing on his thoughts, until eventually: "For him," he says. "I think it might be better for him."

* * *

The Argents are the last to arrive.

For every wolf, they have brought with them at least two Hunters. This does not, in any way, bode well.

As one, the Alphas step forward. Before Deaton can perform the introductory greeting rites the wolves adhere to, or anything else of that nature can happen, the little girl who came with Kali's Pack cries joyfully, "Roscoe!" And that mountainous beast of a dog Noah had seen at the last meeting he'd attended bounds through the Hunters' ranks, tackles the little girl to the ground, and licks great swathes of slobber up her face.

So, Noah notes, not only does the dog remind him strongly of his dead wife's jeep, it also carries the same _name_ as her old husk of machinery.

"Dude," Mischief says, clicking his fingers in an absently chastising manner. Roscoe smacks his chops with a wheezy woof, saunters over to his apparent master's side, and sits back on his haunches with a mighty thud and an air of grand satisfaction.

Christopher Argent, sounding wry and resigned, says, "He's yours, isn't he?"

"Yep," is the bright, saucy reply.

Victoria's face turns three shades darker than her bottle-red hair. Chris shakes his head with a mild chuckle, "Allison will be sad to see him go. She's been trying to convince us to keep him ever since he showed up. Named him and everything."

"He's been following my family around ever since the Siren," Victoria grits out, smiling rigidly. "That seems... a little underhanded, don't you think?"

Mischief raises his eyebrows. "Lady," he says, "I have literally _blackmailed_ you. How is my pet dog following you around of his own accord the thing that's upsetting you?"

Victoria's smile turns sneering and cruel, "Maybe we can discuss this during our _revisions_ of your little treaty, hm?"

Something in Mischief's aspect seems to rear up and rattle like a mother snake protecting her spawn from eggshell-crunching boots, though he doesn't move a muscle. Whatever serenity had flowed through the veins of the wolves, all gathered together under the protection of each of their Alphas, shrivels up like grapes left to bake under the sun.

Victoria thrusts a hand out toward Laura, "You're the new Hale Alpha, aren't you? The one that crippled your mother for her eyes? I didn't know 'weres could do that. I've seen her around town. She looks pitiful. But you wouldn't care about that, would you?"

Chris looks a little sickened by his wife's behaviour, but says nothing. All of the wolves bristle at Victoria's frank disrespect. Laura stands ramrod and blank-faced as the air curdles with tension.

Peter steps in, voice somewhere between civil and poisonous, "It's impolite not to be introduced, _Vicky."_

"Maybe among your kind," she says, her eyes like the glint of a very sharp knife. "I'm not going to learn your customs just because it's _peacetime."_ She gestures toward the distillery with her unshaken hand. "Shall we?"

Laura sighs, unhappy and troubled, as they all are. "Alan," she says.

Alan Deaton inhales deeply, and with a small introductory word on their meeting's aim - the continuation of peace and prosperity in the Hale Region - he opens the doors into the derelict metal building.

Victoria, Christopher, and three tall, broad, dim-eyed men enter. Laura takes with her Peter, Noah, Róisín and Alan. Hadassah brings no one. Deucalion and Ennis escort three of their own. Kali leads in Mischief's brown-haired companion, Roscoe, and Mischief himself, who closes the door behind them.

Thus, their meeting commences.


	31. The Answer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> does this count as an early chapter???? or a late double chapter??? i don't know, lol, it's my birthday! so, here! have a thing! whoooooooooooo (can you tell that i'm tired? bc i'm tired; if you catch editor-me slipping holler at me in the comments) i love all yo faces, _soulhugs you to death,_ and i hope this is some modicum of alright, _flops onto face in corner_
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Bigotry & Prejudice, Ableist Language, fairly heavy discussion on the whole "Hunters who get the Bite have to commit suicide" thing, so: Implied/Referenced Self-Harm/Suicide???, blink-and-miss gory prose

(Outside of the distillery, indistinguishable from the rest of the twilit blacktop, is a sheet of mountain ash scattered subtly from Mischief's pockets.

And, as Mischief's mountain ash has that peculiar quality of not affecting werewolves when he does not want it to, the Pack delegates tread upon it unscathed. If Peter or Deaton, or Julia or Kali, noticed him doing this, they kept it to themselves.)

The werewolves and the Hunters converge around the long steel table Noah and Peter had dragged in here hours earlier.

Victoria is as cold as the universe.

Systematically, she attempts to dissect treaties that support equality and kindness for _both sides,_ striving, instead, toward what _she_ thinks will be better. Humans, she insists, are in constant danger from beasts who can't control themselves, and Hunters, by proxy, are at even more risk. She cites the Siren, she cites how many blue-eyed are in each Pack, how many have been _brought to this meeting,_ she cites the impact of the goddamn moon.

Werewolves aren't human, is what it boils down to. 

Always, she declares, the wolf will out, and when it does - a breath hissed in through the teeth, a sharp tic of the jaw, an incriminating click of the tongue - well, what they have in place _now_ certainly won't be enough.

Notice how she brought two Hunters for every one wolf? Yet, she says, if this meeting were being held under the full moon—

"It _isn't,"_ Kali cuts in, crisp and agitated.

"But if it _were,"_ Victoria insists, "it would take _three_ of my men for every one of your wolves."

"No," Laura says, her voice hushed but heavy with conviction, heavy with harrowed knowing. "It wouldn't. We have no intention of fighting you, Victoria. We have no intention of hurting — anyone."

Victoria arches an eyebrow, a slick line of gory-red on her pale face. "Is that what you were thinking when you crippled your mother, Ms. Hale? That you had _no intention_ of hurting her?"

Noah sees Peter's hand slide into his niece's and squeeze. He knows that he and Peter are of the same mind in this: they are here for Laura, for their Alpha, but she is new blood here, and she needs to be able to hold her own.

Now is not the time for them to speak. _(Not yet.)_

A bright flush burns on her cheeks, but Laura keeps her head held high, unashamed. "No," she says again. "I was doing what was best for my Pack, and I stand by my decision. That was _justice._ You're talking about," she makes an abortive, half-disgusted gesture, "wanton violence. Hurting people for the sake of hurting them."

"Yes. Because that's what we _need_ to talk about. This," Victoria stabs her pointer finger down onto the page-filled binder, "restrains my Clan from doing its job. Nevermind how many liberties it allows _your_ kind."

Mischief is standing beside a thin, vertical fissure in one of the many metal sheets that shore up the walls of this place. He isn't so cavalier as to look through it, but - to Noah, at the very least - it's obvious that he's keeping the parking lot in his periphery. "Victoria," he says, sounding impatient, "get to the point."

"Excuse me?"

"Which clauses do you want to address?" he asks, "What, exactly, is causing the issue here? Because I'm prepared to agree to any _good_ legitimate changes you have to share, really, I am - hooray for progress - but if all you're trying to do is intimidate us into agreeing to things that will only harm our region on the long run..." he shrugs as if he's bored, but the motion is belied by his glance — there's a savagery in his eyes, grim and dark and floating prostrate above madness, that is far too engaged for boredom. "It's not going to work."

Victoria, thus pressed, quirks her lips in a cruel fashion and begins discussing what she wants to be subtracted, what she wants to be added, and what she wants to be altered about the treaties.

Her accusations and general meanness throughout are wearying; she talks down to every wolf in the room as though they are an ill-behaved child, and while she'll take with more consideration the advice of the Emissaries, she's obstinate in _everything._ It's like haggling with a brick wall over the basic rights of anybody with an ounce of the supernatural running through their veins.

The Alphas are steadily gaining on that peculiar giddy sort of frustration that occurs when you're unable to tear your hair out and dissolve into tears because what you're doing is too important and politic for any visible lack of decorum.

After Laura has beyond proven that her standards and morals are above that of her mother, Peter and Noah begin intervening more, speaking on her behalf, and arguing with the Hunters as civilly as the circumstances demand.

Mischief says nothing for a long time after his initial outburst. He simply watches, as Victoria's husband does; although, where Chris' demeanour seems sick with uneasiness, Mischief's seems steady, angry, and waiting.

(A warm hazy breeze kicks up charcoal-hued dust without the distillery. 

The Hunters taste it in the back of their throats. They don't think anything of it, beyond perhaps a late wanting for a drink of water. They live and they breathe and they sweat, anticipating a cue from their matriarch.)

The Alphas, their Emissaries, and the Hunters labour over the treaties in the low, flickering lights of the hanging lamps. If any compromises are made in Victoria's favour, she pushes for more; if it starts to look as if she will have to concede something to the wolves, she decides to put a pin in it and move on, seething.

Noah is past the point of bafflement when it comes to this woman's character, and has moved onto active loathing.

He remembers what Mischief had supposedly done to Gerard in this building, and finds himself daydream-wishing that the same fate had befallen Gerard's daughter-in-law. And then the part of him that keeps relating Mischief to Claudia and Stiles, the part that, when he first saw Mischief, thought only _kid_ , checks the homicidal fantasy and decides that if anyone's going to kill Victoria, it ought to be him.

He's the Sheriff and the adult (and the father) here; he could get away with it, he's sure, and if needs must he wouldn't even mind it.

Victoria gets to the part of the treaties that, in their way, protect the blue-eyed, and her manner makes her crueller ideologies even more apparent.

Noah flashes back to the Siren's fallout, to Victoria's point-blank willingness to execute every blue-eyed, as if it were just the sensible thing to do, to Talia's complacency in the face of it.

No one is being complacent now, but the push-pull is — exhausting.

It is clear that Victoria doesn't want to listen to any of them. She doesn't care what any of them have to say. They're not human, or, if they are _biologically_ human, they've sided with the monsters; they're traitors.

"Tell me, Victoria," Mischief cuts in, interrupting a rant from the woman in question that was on the brink of losing all subtlety, "how deep does your hatred run? You'd be blue-eyed, you know, if you were a wolf."

Victoria scoffs, "That is _ridiculous."_

Everyone it the room - even Christopher - looks askance at her.

Mischief raises his eyebrows, "Is it? Wolven eyes don't discern between the innocent and the guilty, the human and the supernatural. If you have ended a life, any life, your eyes change. I'm pretty sure—"

"And what about _you?"_ Victoria snaps, twisted at the edges with both contemptuous laughter and a wild, breathless defensiveness. "I've studied up, after what you did to my family. After what you did to my _step-father._ You can't play holier than thou with me, little boy."

Peter and Kali simultaneously growl and bare their teeth. Mischief's brown-haired companion - who Noah now knows to be Julia, Kali's Emissary - shifts back three steps to be closer to him, wary. Noah bites back a grimace and starts clocking the exits, the positions of his important people, and how fast he can get to his gun. Chris — bows his head, expression obscured by shadow, shoulders stiff.

"But I wouldn't mind," Mischief says, almost easy. "I don't want to be Turned," he concedes. "But if I were, I would be blue-eyed, you're right. Here's the thing: _I don't care._ I have killed. So have you. So have most of your Clan. Do you regret the blood on your hands, Victoria?"

She is silent for a moment, strained fury etched in every line of her face. "... No."

"I do," he murmurs, something wilfully crushed and too honest in the softness of it. "Not all of them, but some. I do." He tilts his head, "Why does it matter how many blue-eyed there are? The treaties let the Packs keep their territories clean with less trigger-happy Hunter interference — which means less work for you, by the way — but as I said earlier: wolven eyes don't give a shit who you kill or why. So, they kill a rogue supernatural to protect their territory and everyone who lives within their territory, _including the humans;_ they do exactly what you would've done for exactly the same reasons you claim you would've done it, the only difference is they exchange their gold razzle-dazzle for new blue iris neons."

Mischief shrugs, concluding, "I'm kind of failing to see your problem, here."

Victoria shakes her head with a tiny, badly hidden smirk, "Even if your little theoretical had any basis in reality," her tone heavily implies that it doesn't, "they would then use that premise to hide any mistakes they made while subject to the full moon or to their base natures. If they kill someone," she makes a sardonic, _fuck it_ gesture, "their eyes are already blue, they can just feed the body to wild animals, no one will know."

Mischief stares at her. The atmosphere in the room sinks like a dejected heart, or like a lion, forepaws and chin pressed to the ground, prepared to pounce with bone-snapping maw.

What would be the point in saying: _We wouldn't do that. We are Anchored, we have Pack, we are stable and civilized and our existence is not innately violent. Having blue eyes doesn't make us any more dangerous than **you,** you gun-oil greased, aconite perfumed woman._

Victoria doesn't care. She would, and has, refuted every point. The freshly Bitten, she'll say, the moon-mad, the rogues, the Siren affected (even though it is very unlikely that any of them will see another Siren again in their lifetimes); we have evidence, she'll tell them, that you just can't _help_ yourselves.

She will skirt around calling them rabid dogs who need to be put down, for their own sakes, as well as everyone else's.

"What would you do if you were Turned?" Mischief asks, low.

"That has no relevance—"

"Alexander Argent killed himself," Mischief says, and he's looking at her but it's obvious this news is for all of them. "He walked into a meeting with Aapep Giliberto, and when he walked out Aapep and all of the packmates he brought with him were dead, and Alexander had been Bitten. Apparently _We Hunt Those Who Hunt Us_ also covers committing suicide if you Turn, because he checked himself into the Glen Capri three hours later and put a bullet through his skull; thousands of other Argents have done the same." His tone tries for airy, but rides on a lush undercurrent of bitterness: "Is that what you would do? Follow the old customs, abandon your family, and die?"

Kali's eyes had flashed vermillion at the mention of Aapep (her father, Noah would later discover). Her body is angled protectively, so that if Victoria makes a move toward her Beta she can defend him. Her claws are unsheathed. She is still.

Victoria places her hands on the table and leans forward, upper lip curling with derision, "I am an Argent. I will die human. I would never subject my Clan to a 'were matriarch. That tradition is in place for a reason."

"You could give up your Clan!" he cries, exasperated and incensed. "You could _live!_ You have a fucking daughter, Victoria," Chris flinches, "one who is completely innocent in all of this, and, what, you'd just up and leave her? No explanations? When you didn't even _have_ to?"

Victoria's chest is heaving, all of her blood has rushed unattractively to her face, her eyes are sparkling with condensed hatred. "You leave my daughter out of this," she husks, warning.

Mischief takes a breath, and then another, pulling himself back from whatever edge he'd been on. "Victoria," he recommences at last, "do you really think that that tradition is conducive to peace?"

"If a Hunter who is Bitten must execute themself - a _newborn_ werewolf," Peter picks up in a solemn murmur, "then it would serve to reason that every werewolf deserves the selfsame end."

Mischief's gaze, for the first time, gets distracted from Victoria's profile. He looks at Peter. His brows scrunch up. His sun-drenched eyes take on a new depth, one of terrible grief, one of terrible hope, "I had a friend once. She used to say that there should be a new Code." Mischief turns back to Victoria, blinks back tears. "Nous protègons ceux qui ne peuvent pas se protèger eux-měmes."

Chris rouses himself from his retiring silence, head jerking up, expression oddly epiphanous. "... We protect those who cannot protect themselves."

 _"Yes,"_ Mischief breathes.

Victoria begins interjecting that Mischief's friend was a fanciful romantic who knew nothing of the real world—

"Jesus Christ," Mischief snarls at her. "Who do you think is hunting you, V? Who on this earth?" He jerks his arms, summarizing the situation at hand, "These are _peace talks._ You need — _God_ — you need to _grow up."_

"Out of the mouths of babes," one of Ennis' sings cheerily, a doddering old grandmother who's about three feet tall with a featureless face buried under drooping wrinkles.

"Babes," Victoria mocks. Levies on them a grin full of nasty mirth, "You're just a child, Mischief. You aren't the great, big, mysterious character that they all make you out to be; you're just an ignorant, misguided child — and you don't have a single idea what you're talking about. How about I ask _you_ a question for a change, hm? Why did you kill my step-father? Why did you blackmail my family? Why are you even _here?"_

Her inquiries make a parody out of the wolves' previous curiosity, all their innocent wonderings about why he had done this or that when he was not, in fact, a Hale.

Noah is still learning about werewolves and how they work, but when they all uniformly react to something outside of his awareness, he can make a pretty educated guess: Mischief's scent must have changed. As one, they gasp tremblingly, and their collective attentions are yanked into Mischief's corner. Some look startled, some look horrified, and others, like Peter, Kali, and Julia, look like they want to sigh and weep and _fight_ for him.

"I thought you said you studied up on me?" Mischief says with a cheap, ironic tilt. 

Victoria has this look on her face, like she's waiting for him to crumple beneath the deluge, like she's enjoying what she assumes will be a stuttering, stammering failure.

His answer comes slow and raw, sliced out of him with rusty wires and salt-stung viscera: "Because I want the Hale region to succeed. Because," he chokes on a wet laugh, "it'd be really fucking nice if the world kept right on turning. Because... because I love them, Victoria. All of them. Of course I would kill for them," he says, regaining something of that savagery he'd had before, "of course I would die for them, of course I _already have._ They're _mine."_

His words spill out like an unravelled vein, pooling vulnerable on the floor for their inspection.

It is a shock that they must all suffer, their eagerly sought out reason: Mischief cares. That's it. He loves them and he cares about them and it _never mattered_ that he wasn't Pack. To him, it never once mattered.

That he is a stranger to most of them — well, there's a reason why Peter believes that he's a Seer, isn't there? Because that never seemed to matter, either.

(The desert breezes outside of the distillery dance once more with the mountain ash, with the Hunters, and become a mirage, rocking and lulling, like the plush, comforting arms of a mother.)

"Enough," Chris says gravely, before his wife can continue her villainous pursuits. She turns on him with the dawning of betrayal. _"Enough,"_ he tells her, firm. "I'm calling my Aunt to finish this."

 _"Rohese?"_ she hisses, outraged.

"Yes. She outranks you, V. And — and at least she'll _listen."_

"I can't _believe_ you."

He chuckles mirthlessly, "Well, I can't believe you, either, so I guess we're in the same boat."

Victoria's eyes narrow, "You've been fighting me every step of the way on this," she accuses.

"Because you're _wrong."_

Victoria sneers at him, "Have you really fallen for their propaganda so easily?"

"No," Chris intones, solemn, his lips thinning. "I've just fallen out of yours."

Victoria, for a moment, is stunned into silence.

(Noah hears Ennis mutter in the background, "I don't remember walking in on my abuelita's telenovela," and the little old lady croak in response, "Good, because I don't remember turning it on.")

Victoria rallies, shoving at Chris, who is as immovable as a mountain, "You are _not_ the man I married!"

"V, I don't think you _ever_ married me." Chris exhales harshly through his nose, scornful, "I think you married my _father."_

("Does anyone have any popcorn?" the old lady wonders.

"I have olives," Julia murmurs in the tight, airy voice of one who is trying to endure the gut-rolling unease of being in the back of a getaway car, while the drivers of said car are already celebrating their success and the cops are staggering after them barely two miles away.

"Sounds about right," the old lady says, and reaches out a hand.)

Victoria stumbles away from him, snicks her phone out of her pocket, and with a kind of wrathful triumph, presses a button.

Nothing happens.

Victoria all but throws a tantrum, shrieking and yowling her way to the door. Upon throwing it open, the source of her distress is discovered: all of the Hunters who had been stationed outside are sleeping very deeply, cocooned in blankets of mountain ash.

"Oh, Victoria," Mischief sighs, "I wish I could say _you know better,_ but — honestly, I was expecting this."

"Ooo, he got her good," the little old lady laughs in her creaky-rocking-chair little old lady voice.

"Are y'all done yet?" calls a chubby Brown man in a Hawaiian shirt with a bright green mohawk and gauges almost the size of his whole head. The twins are hanging off of him like leeches.

"Not yet," Hadassah calls back. "Mischief was just teaching our Huntress here a lesson."

"Oh," the man says, blinking. "Did she learn it?"

Hadassah peeks at the fit-to-faint fuming Victoria Argent, then looks back at the three other Hunters who had gone in to sign the treaty with them. The trio has very silently, but very succinctly, backed several steps away from Victoria, toward her husband.

Hadassah smiles widely, and calls out, "I think so."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy birthday to me, i got stuck in a tree, something about monkeys~~ and multiple character juggling~~ (which is hard af) 🎉🎊🌺✌
> 
> take care, loves, i hope you're all doing well, and i hope you enjoyed, xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
> 
> Edit: by step-father, i meant father-in-law/Gerard, but i actually kind of like this error? i don't even know why? sooo, i'm leaving it, lol -- love ya!


	32. Nikolaj Giliberto

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, oh my goodness! Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes, they were all so lovely, and _you_ are all so lovely!!!! I hope all of you are having a good day, staying safe, washing your hands, etcetera, xoxoxoxoxo!!!!
> 
> (This chapter sort of went off the rails, and I really hope that it's okay, lol, _hides in blanket burrito)_
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Nikolaj Has Panic Attacks/possible PTSD (even if he doesn't know it), Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence & Toxic Relationships, Violence & Gore, Minor Character Death, Implied/Referenced: Cousin A is in love with Cousin B-ish? but it goes nowhere and it ends here

Nikolaj keeps his own counsel. He's had to, ever since Mama died. He has far too many secrets for any other option to be available to him.

After the march of the vargr, he had gone back to his little cabin by the graveyard and dissolved into a strange, nerve-wrecked weeping that had snatched his breath away. He'd lost his family. They were _awful_ people, he knows that — _Gods,_ does he know that. But they were - are - his.

What's more, Grandmother is second-keeper to the deepest secret he owns.

He can't understand why she hadn't revealed him when she'd discovered his betrayal. His spirits flutter anxiously between relief and—. He doesn't know. He should _only_ feel relief. 

He doesn't. 

He supposes he'll have to come to terms with that.

On the second night of Kali's being away, Nikolaj goes to that part of the Gate that's actually scaleable from the inside — if you know what you're doing. Two Thunderers are there: Thomas and Danaë.

"What're ya' up to, pup?" Thomas asks, in his wonted jovial manner.

Nikolaj shrugs. Motions up the Gate.

Thomas hums. Doesn't take his eyes off him as he says, "Hey, Danaë; take a walk, why don't you, darlin'?"

Danaë squints at Thomas, then at Nikolaj, then throws up her hands and stalks off, muttering uncharitable things under her breath.

Thomas is sitting on a milk crate, one long leg outstretched, hands resting loosely in his pockets. He looks comfortable, mildly entertained, entirely at his ease. "I know you're not the talkin' type, but I'm gonna need a solid answer from you, if you want me to let you pass."

Nikolaj can't possibly say what he means to do out loud.

He knows his family better than anybody else within this Pack. Grandmother and Erik will never stop their crusade against Kali and the blue-eyed, that they are vargr means only that it will take them longer to strike back. Nikolaj is leaving tomorrow, but he can't — he _can't_ go without making sure it's all — _clean._

He tells the smallest part of that truth: "I'm getting my affairs in order."

Thomas tilts his head. "S'at so?"

There is a moment of silence in which Thomas seems to be weighing the very core of him.

"All right, pup," he concedes softly at last, jerking his chin toward the Gate. "Go on, then."

Nikolaj, nodding his gratitude, goes.

* * *

Quiet as the moon's darkest shadows, Nikolaj creeps through the vargr camp. The bone dagger he's carrying had been a gift from his father. It is the only thing that that cruel, disgusting man had ever given to him.

He finds Grandmother first, on the absolute outskirts, alone. She looks _aged._ Her appellation has never seemed so fitting: _**Old** Ren._

He darts forward and stomps down on her chest. Her eyes pop open, bug-wide and glittering in the starlight. Nikolaj straddles her to the ground and presses his sharp ivory blade into the wrinkly folds of her throat before she can catch her breath. She heaves until her lungs begin cooperating with her again.

 _"Kolka,"_ she rumbles, wincing strained. She does not seem surprised to see him.

He only has one question for her, and then he will do what he came here to do. "You didn't tell her. Why?"

Grandmother husks a discordant laugh. "I should have," she pants viciously. "I _should_ have told her that you're her slimy little bastard half-brother, I—"

Nikolaj slits her throat. A line of red that slowly yawns open into a gaping, blood-blushing maw — he slides off of her body before the severed veins can drench him.

It's unsettling that he will never know — but, then, she _would_ spite him that way, wouldn't she?

He presses his cheek against the cool sand to whisper in her ear, "I lay this curse upon you, moonborn daughter: that neither Charon nor Dirgen will ever see your miserable, Gods forsaken soul," and, after the crimson freshet has died down, he digs the point of his dagger in-between her spine and her skull, grabs her head with both hands, and twists. Bone cracks, gore gushes, flesh rips and snaps.

Once her head is free, Nikolaj takes it as far away as he conceivably can — the scent of her death is loud, and the rest of the vargr are too close by, even sleeping; he needs to finish this quickly. He slices her tongue out of her mouth and gouges out her eyes. He places her eyes behind her teeth, then cuts the tongue into two pieces, shoving the split muscle into the eyes' former cavities.

His hands are slick-wet and shaking, his lungs feel full of splinters, his cheeks burn.

Memories flash behind his eyes: _Grandmama!_ She is pushing him on a swing. She is telling him stories. She is teaching him how to sew. He is her favourite, and he revels in it. He doesn't see Daddy often, but Grandmama tells him that he is an Alpha's son. Then — Daddy _beats_ Mama. Nikolaj discovers hate. Nikolaj discovers fear. _I have his hands. I have his blood. Am I like him? Will I become like that? Will I hurt her - anyone - like that?_ Nikolaj begins hearing Daddy in Grandmama's voice, in her stories. Nikolaj discovers — disgust; with himself for loving her, with her for—

"I hate that she breaks your heart like this," his mother used to tell him. (This, after Mama and Grandmother had stopped speaking, after Erik had replaced him as Grandmother's favourite.)

He'd take her thin hand in his and press it to his breastbone, patting it gently. "My heart is fine, Mama."

She'd smile, pained, "Oh, Nikolaj."

Nikolaj sighs, shivery, scrubs his hands partway clean - or, at least, dry - in the sand, scrapes at his drenched cheeks, and gets up.

It feels like its been hours but - he checks his watch - it's only been thirteen minutes. Gods.

He's too far away from Grandmother's body to know whether or not her death has been marked. Doesn't matter.

His dagger in hand, he circles around the vargr camp to reenter it from the opposite side. If an alarm has been raised, he cannot hear it. The vargr are all sleeping soundly in their primitive canvas shelters, unaware that their puppet-master has just been slaughtered.

Nikolaj sniffles, clears his throat — then inhales, searching.

Erik is, of course, more difficult to find than Grandmother. Erik has always been more difficult, in everything, for Nikolaj.

He'd never envied his cousin for usurping his place in Grandmother's heart. He had been glad. It had freed him. And, anyway, it used to be that whatever made Erik happiest made Nikolaj happy. He'd always loved his cousin more than was — appropriate.

When they were younger, Nikolaj had been Erik's willing and faithful servant.

He can't say that Grandmother had _poisoned_ Erik. She'd _influenced_ him, yes, but he'd had that meanness in him for ever.

Grandmother had been head of the tailors before Nikolaj. Mama used to say he was born with sewing hands, a perfect descendant of Athena. In order to protect and provide for her, Nikolaj had endured the rest of his family's company. After Mama had died, after fighting tooth and nail to be regarded as the more accomplished and sensible tailor, after successfully winning Grandmother's position from her and losing any affection she might've had left for him — he'd stayed for Erik.

Over time, his secrets had stacked: who he was, how he really felt about what the people around him were saying and doing, his incremental horror and disdain. 

He's always considered his loving Erik to be a small, nearly harmless secret, comparatively, but it had been one of the foundational ones.

Nikolaj finds his cousin in one of the biggest tents. Mona and Chanterelle are curled up around him, naked.

He pokes the soft brown sole of Chanterelle's foot, as he has done a thousand times before.

"Fuck off, Nikki," she mumbles, still asleep, caught up in the hazy afterglow of ritual and what her mind is used to. But then she must remember their new situation, or perhaps she smells Grandmother's blood, because she startles up with a gasp to stare at him. Her eyes are automatically drawn to the dagger. "Holy _shit."_

Nikolaj flashes his eyes. Blue, now. Soul-scarred.

It grabs her attention. Her breath shallows. She begins to tremble. "Nik-Nikki," she stammers. Puts a hand up hesitantly, "Don't—"

"Get out, Chantey," Nikolaj says. "Take Mona with you."

Her throat spasms. She spares Erik a lingering look. "Okay," she says. "Fuck, okay." She climbs out of the cot, and, managing to wake up Mona without disturbing Erik, she conveys with three or four speaking looks that they need to get the fuck outta there as fast as possible. Mona begins sobbing into her hands, but she lets Chanterelle escort her out in relative silence, which is all Nikolaj needs.

Nikolaj feels an ecstasy of pain rippling within him.

He points the tip of his dagger at Erik's heart. Erik stays sleeping.

_I have to, I have to. Just **do it.** Get it over with, just—_

With all of his strength, he plunges the dagger into Erik's chest. Erik's eyes snap open. His face contorts and screws up with heartwrenching emotion.

Nikolaj grits his teeth and presses down harder. A small, whimpery puff of air escapes Erik's lungs. Nikolaj whines, animal, agonized. The spirit in Erik's eyes fades. Nikolaj heaves the dagger out of Erik's bleeding corpse and stumbles back.

It takes several moments for him to recompose himself.

Once he has his feelings in a stranglehold, and he's some measure of calm, he leaves the tent, and the campground, and sneaks back into the compound.

It's over. He's done. He can leave, now. It's _over._

* * *

In the western gardens of the sky baby's breath and lily blossom constellations are withering down to make room for steadily sprouting violets, cornflowers, and pastel-pale roses. Underneath the dawning chorus of Swainson's Thrushes, Robins, and Wrens, Victoria's muffled shrieks are barely audible; and, if anyone _can_ still hear her, they've elected to ignore her.

She's trussed up against the distillery in mountain ash bindings, unable to even writhe in her distress.

"You couldn't've just put her to sleep like the rest of them, could you?" Chris had asked Mischief when he'd done it. Mischief had only smiled his eyes at him, declining to reply.

As they wait on Rohese, Mischief, Roscoe, and Chris go around waking up the other Hunters one by one. Those too loyal to Victoria to be borne are put right back to sleep. The rest are allowed to get up and mingle.

The thunderous purr of a motorcycle dashes the birds, startled, out of their roosts, drawing the whole of their meeting party's attention.

Rohese rides in, kills her sleek, matte-black bike, dismounts it, and pulls off her helmet. Her greying blonde hair is plaited tightly in a thick Dutch braid that flows down her back, and she's covered practically head-to-toe in ink-gloss leather.

Kohl-hooded hoarfrost blue eyes hone in on Victoria's thoroughly fettered body, then slant meaningfully at her nephew. "I hope this means you're divorcing her."

Chris smacks his tongue across his front teeth, as if trying to decide which emotion that should provoke. He settles on rueful. "Yes, Aunt Ro," he allows on an exhale. "That's — pretty much what it means, yeah."

"Good," Rohese says, sauntering into Victoria's space and spitting at her feet. "Bitch never deserved to carry the Argent name in the first goddamn place. Come on," she continues over her shoulder as she heads in through the doors of the distillery, "let's get this show on the road, people!"

"Now _that,"_ Noah says admiringly, "is a fine woman."

Chris rolls his eyes and Peter snorts with a small shake of his head. Out of the corner of his eye, Noah catches Mischief's expression change, too, as they follow Rohese inside the antiquated building; there's sincere support there, half-delighted teasing, and something almost dryly resigned.

Noah is intimately acquainted with this expression: it's the same one Stiles wears whenever he's trying to convince Noah to ask Melissa out, or to ask _anyone_ out. On Mischief's face half of it is concealed, and what isn't is... older, in more ways than one, more melancholic, weary, wretched.

Noah's heart twists all out of order.

 _Stiles,_ his soul whispers again, more insistent.

* * *

Nikolaj has never truly been a part of the Giliberto Pack.

Because of his family, he's always been isolated within this tiny, excluded, traditional bubble. 

Of his Alpha, he knows only this: that, whether she is ignorant of it or not, she took the brunt of their father's abuse, effectively shielding Nikolaj and Mama from it. She has Aapep's blood in her veins, too, but — she doesn't have his hands. And she has Julia, she has Mischief, hopefully... Hopefully.

She seems good. Kind.

Mischief had saved him, when his family had grown worse and more actively destructive, when his secrets had decayed into something potentially lethal.

Nikolaj had heard, once, someone say they thought Mischief the reincarnation of a God. Maybe. What he'd done for Nikolaj in recruiting him as his spy had been, to Nikolaj, nothing short of miraculous.

If he _isn't_ a God, then thank the Gods for him.

There is a famous tailor in Brazil, in want of an apprentice.

There is a Pack in Brazil: The Pack of The Exiled.

From the moment he'd betrayed Grandmother and Erik for this Pack's sake, for Kali's sake, for _his own_ sake — he'd known that he wouldn't be able to stay.

He is wearing one of his best-liked suits and an overstuffed duffel bag, riding his bicycle up to the mouth of the Gate. He did not sleep last night. The sun is beating down on him, relentless. 

Kyrie pulls the lever and the gate rolls open, his path billowing out before him.

He glances back at the compound, the only home he's ever known in his twenty years of living. _Goodbye,_ he thinks, and is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .... soooo... yupp
> 
> soulhugs~~
> 
> (eat a snack, drink some water, take a nap, be good to yourselves 🌺)


	33. Reunion (Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short & (hopefully) sweet; I hope you're all as safe as possible and as healthy as possible, and that this silly chapter can take you away for awhile, xoxoxoxo, _soulhugs~_
> 
>  **Oh, hey! :** I will be writing more on Nikolaj - chapter 32 will not be the last you see of him, I have plans -- and I am _blown away_ by how much you guys actually liked him, wow! Okay - I love you lot - read on and enjoy!!!
> 
> (no trigger warnings for this one, i think, except for possibly mischief/stiles' ptsd)

Rohese promptly discards everything that Victoria had tried to restyle about the treaty for herself and her Hunters.

Then, speaking to the Alphas: "Do you or any of your people have any complaints about the treaty the way it was?" None of them do. Rohese turns to Chris. "Do _you?"_

He raises his eyebrows mildly, "No, Aunt Ro."

"Okie-dokie, then, folks," she says, and, plucking a pen up off the table, she moves to sign on the dotted line. 

Everyone within the room is overcome with excessive, and excessively audible, surprise. 

"What?" Rohese snaps, impatient and apparently too busy to coddle their anxieties — however incited they may've been by her own niece-in-law. "Your region is the safest, most integrated area in this whole goddamn country. I got old-timers who want to _retire_ here. I got young couples with their sweet little babies wanting to come in from the cold, telling me this is where they gotta go to do it. I got the council and _everybody_ breathing down my neck to make this peace _last."_

The little ink-coated brass ball rolls out her full, frank-printed name. It clings to the paper with a fleeting sticky sound every time Rohese lifts it.

"Not all my people are bloodthirsty scum-fucked cunts," she says - Chris barely refrains from facepalming -; "some of 'em are just plain tired." She raises her eyes to look at them from underneath her heavy brows. "'Sides, this meeting was never s'posed to be about _revision,_ was it?"

Laura steps into the light. Collects the pen from Rohese's stout hand to employ her own signature. "No, ma'am," she says.

"Humph," Rohese says, leaning back and crossing her arms over her chest. "I oughtta shoot that bitch."

"Aunt _Ro,"_ Chris laments, somehow, in the face of this new Argent Matriarch, coming off like a petulant little boy.

Laura's eyes glitter gleefully as she bends over the treaty to set her name down.

The distillery becomes so full of shining, beautiful faces, of such a great conviviality of spirit, that the tumult of the past four hours begins to seem like a mere dream.

* * *

While Chris and Rohese are determining exactly what to do with Victoria, Laura, jubilant and still oh, so determined to prove that she is _nothing_ like her mother, invites each of the Alphas and their fellows to sojourn at the Hale place for the night. 

Astonished agreements are raised all around. Noah gets the feeling that this is beyond unprecedented, and that, just by wantonly doing the exact opposite of what Talia would have done, Laura is making quite the happy impression.

Peter - and surprisingly, yet unsurprisingly, Mischief - is all pride.

Hadassah murmurs, lightly wistful, that she's glad she'll be able to see that house again, and Talia. Her idolatry of the late Alpha has dissipated, but they are still — friends. After a fashion. Hadassah had been trying to convince her that blue-eyed weren't so bad as she thought, before the Alphahood had changed hands.

"Were you getting through to her, do you think?" Noah asks.

Hadassah sighs bittersweetly. "She does not think much of any of us. The other Alphas visit me sometimes, but she does not. She sends her brother instead. In meetings like this one, it would not be she who came. Or, if it would, she'd be in her wolf-skin first. I do not know why. Did she think she had something to prove? But our wolf is our _soul._ To shift in front of so many in that way..." Hadassah shakes her head. "— No, my new friend. I was not getting through to her. Does a fly get through to another fly, who thinks they are a lion?"

"No," Noah says, sympathetic, "I'd imagine not."

She smiles at him, the stunning beauty of her burying any apparent strain.

Chris and Rohese resolve on taking Victoria directly to the council, meaning to dissolve Chris' marriage with her, settle the custody of Allison, and terminate Victoria's position of power within the Argent Clan in one fell swoop.

"I'm leaving my daughter in charge," Rohese tells the dim-eyed Hunter trio who had been in the distillery with them. "She lives out by Lighthouse Lake. Fair warning, she's recently gotten herself hitched to a Banshee."

Mischief, surreptitiously preparing Victoria and all of her dead-loyal for secure transportation nearby, jerks. Blinks. Looks up at Rohese in blank surprise.

Rohese catches his look and grins, "Heard you had something to do with that, by the way: my Maddy still being of this world, an' all." She claps him companionably on the shoulder — missing his, and Julia and Kali's, flinch. "Thank you, Mischief. Really, from the bottom of my heart."

And then, sliding her helmet over her head, she ascends her bike and rides out on that breeze she blew in on. Behind her, several nondescript black vans full of fast asleep, mountain ash bound Hunters follow like dedicated pointers, who, having caught their prey, are now more than content to be led back home.

Roscoe, curled up around the now-sleeping little girl who had greeted him so joyfully earlier, does not go with them.

Mischief, on the other hand — vanishes. The exact same way that he had when Noah had first met him. Like a ghost, a hallucination, a vapour. An impossible fact of reality: one second he had been there, and the next he simply _hadn't._

Hadassah frowns, forehead corrugating. Peter, hand drifting toward his chest, descends immediately into troubled concern.

Kali's expression is soft, sad, knowing.

Someone asks her where he went, if he's coming back?

"Give him time," is all she says. "Just — give him time."

* * *

The Hale house's backyard is an extensive, lush pool of clovers skirted by the Preserve. A picnic-like feast is laid out there before the guests in record time, and everyone is encouraged to indulge.

Betwixt the Hales' gravel driveways and the yard, Kali's caravans are parked. Their doors are flung open, with colourful little awnings propped up above them. The vehicles are filled with yellow-golden light, and two members of Kali's Pack - Raamah and Dante - stand in their halos peddling furs, leathers, bone chimes, bone daggers, bone jewellery, &c.

The three children who came with the delegates (and who had been fairly sleepy before) suddenly find incredible zeal in playing with the other children now available to them. Roscoe alternates between excitedly chasing them and loping into Noah's space to snuffle at him and beg for scraps and caresses.

"He likes you," Julia says, coming to sit down next to him during one of the rare lulls. She smiles and holds out her hand, "I'm Julia, Kali's Emissary."

"Noah," he replies, shaking her hand firmly. "Beacon Hills' Sheriff." He inclines his head toward his Alpha, "Laura's friend."

Julia's smile grows. "Nice to meet you."

She says that she's trusting Roscoe's good judgement in regards to his character, and they chat for a while: about the limitless energy of children, about how it's getting to be six in the morning, and, lightly, about Mischief, whom Julia speaks of like a brother. 

Politely (but still, he'll own, nosy as all hell), Noah inquires, "Are you two biological siblings, or...?"

"No," she says, half laughing, "we aren't blood-related, but it doesn't matter. We're brother and sister."

Noah believes her.

She stares at him a little strangely, "In fact," she says, "you resemble him a lot more than I do."

"Do I?" Noah asks, wry — and here he'd been thinking this kid looked more like his wife and his son than anybody.

"Yeah," she says on an exhale, with a peculiar amount of gravity. "You do."

Roscoe sprints back to them, prancing around Noah and Julia with fervent excitement until Julia reveals to him the secret of Roscoe's olive obsession. Roscoe gulps down half of her little baggie of treats before he runs off again.

"Hey, I got a weird question for ya'," Noah remarks. "That big ol' dog ever remind you of a Jeep?"

Julia's eyes widen to sparkle, and her reply has all the enthusiastic vehemence of one who has finally discovered the only other verifiably sane person on the planet, _"Yes!_ All the time."

Well, then. Isn't that interesting?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: Mischief is fine, he is just _very bad_ at being touched and/or being thanked
> 
> PPS: On Lorraine Martin, Lydia's Grandmother -- her then-girlfriend, now-wife, Maddy was saved by Mischief in, like, the first chapter. Maddy (in this fic) just so happens to be Madeline Argent, Rohese's daughter. whoooo? lol
> 
> love you guys!!! have an awesome day!!!!


	34. Reunion (Part III)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Special Note :** To everyone reading this, leaving comments and kudos and bearing with me through this whole-ass fic, you have no idea how much you mean to me. Like, I know I've been absolute shit about commenting back, but I read _every single one of your comments._ They give me inspiration and motivation and often make my entire freaking week. Just -- I love you guys. Thank you, all of you, and I hope this reaches you in good health and is capable of taking you away for a while. You all mean the world to me. 🌺💕💕💕  
> (And, we hit 3,000 kudos -- like, _what?_ Ohmigodyouguys *throws flowerpetals at all of you and falls over*)
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Family Drama, Hard Conversations

Peter is called, by the sight of his elder sister, toward the screened back porch.

She is in her wheelchair - attended to by Carrie - wearing a black, strap-sleeved dress, her dark hair pulled back into a tumbling pony-tail, wisps of it curling down around her sallow face.

"Talia," he greets.

Unhappiness shrouds her like a heavy shawl, digging deep creases into her flesh. Within her scent, the ivy that climbs Hera or Aphrodite's marble-draped legs is rotting, and the arms and heads of the statues themselves have been smashed to fall crudely upon the dusty roads they formerly guarded. Peter used to hate making her smell like this when they were younger; it always felt sacrilegious.

"Why," she asks in a tight voice that is as thin and feeble as any dead leaf, "are all these people here?" Her eyes cut to him, accusatory, "They aren't Pack, Peter."

"Laura invited them," Peter says, light.

Carrie bends her face down in an attempt to hide her grimacing sneer.

One of the first things Laura had done after she'd seized power was reconstruct the curadh gan chloí. She is Alpha now, and the curadh gan chloí are meant to be the Alpha's inner circle — in the old days, the Hale Alpha would be curadh gan chloí herself, and the sisters-in-arms would be sisters in far more than name. 

If your Alpha does not trust you, you cannot be curadh gan chloí.

Carrie is no longer curadh gan chloí.

Róisín is. Helena-Mae, although under close scrutiny, is. Laura's even considering bringing Henley into the fold.

And, after Lusagaria, she and the rest of her chosen curadh gan chloí will undergo the binding of Moon Sisters within the Sacred Grove, under the light of a supermoon.

The oddest thing about this, to Peter, is that Laura's harshest critics seem to be under the impression that she's forcing their Pack to abandon their traditions and customs entirely, when, in fact, for all the modernity that she's 'subjecting them to', she is also leashing them back to facets of their culture that have been all but lost to time.

Laura will be the first curadh gan chloí Alpha they've had in six generations.

Language could never do justice to the amount of love and admiration Peter feels for her, to the way his sentiments monumentally increase and joyously baffle him every single day.

Talia tosses her head in a pet, so that she is turned away from him and her hair is flung like tea-spill over her shoulder. "You shouldn't have let her—." The words disintegrate. The veins in her neck stand out, and blood harshens the cast of her cheeks. "She shouldn't have."

"Why not? Talia," Peter intones, low, "everybody in Beacon Hills knows where we live, it's not as if our address is a _secret._ Our home was built on packlands, but it is in no way sacred. We live behind no Gate, we thrive under no temple—"

"But this is where we _sleep!"_ she rushes out savagely, head whipping round to face him again. Carrie's hands tighten over the wheelchair's push handles.

Peter's head is a confusion of impassioned emotion, his arteries all pneumatic: steel pipes encapsulating pressurized air, or steam, or waning, whining rivulets of his grieved soul. That air collects in his jaws, compresses his windpipe, "And tonight, dear sister, we will not sleep alone."

Talia leans back and gasps like she has a wailing thing coiled to spring in the bottom of her throat.

Peter heaves a sigh, briefly shutting his eyes in self-directed irritation. "Will you come down? Hadassah has been asking after you."

The porch is raised five small steps above the yard. (Ben-J, Artis, and Senan have been remodelling several areas of the house to make it more wheelchair accessible. They've floated the possibility of building Talia a fully-equipped cabin so that she can have someplace better suited to her needs while she waits, but Talia has so far been adamantly opposed.)

"No," Talia says. She does not sound proud, anymore. She sounds retiring. Hazel eyes become glassy baubles of panicked wild, travelling down the stairs and then away, grasping at corners and shadows. "No, I — I won't."

There is a moment of silence, of grimness, washed out by the merry-loud festivities bare metres apart from them. Then Carrie inhales, sharp, and wheels Talia around, returning her into the house with nary a word.

Peter tears his fingers through his hair and blows out an exhale.

Derek oozes out of some dark corner like a fucking hant and very nearly - very _very_ nearly - manages to startle him.

"You," Peter breathes, "are getting better at that."

Derek smirks. "Too many people around for you to hear me."

"Yes," Peter agrees, "but your scent is a dead giveaway."

Derek raises his eyebrows. "Only if you're _looking_ for it."

Peter shakes his head with a small huff, "I'd get Laura to chastise Helena-Mae for losing you - and not even having the decency to _notice_ that she's lost you - as often as she does, except..."

Derek cants his head in question.

Peter smiles softly and runs a scenting hand through his nephew's hair, over his cheeks and shoulders. "Well," he says, with the slightest teasing lilt, _"I_ don't lose you. I supposed that'll have to do."

Derek rolls his eyes, hard. Stands there. Morphs into discomfited requiring.

Peter goes so low as to ask if anything's the matter, but doesn't press any further. Extends his scenting/grooming. Waits.

At length, after some time, Derek speaks: "Mischief."

"You felt his packbond go live?" — Sharing an empathic packbond with someone who regularly conceals themself until they feel as the river rapids rushing below thick layers of ice do is difficult. That same packbond's deliberate muteness being unstable and liable to burst into geysers of enormous - and often heartbreaking - emotion without a moment's notice?

It can be painful. _Of course_ it can be; there is always pain in seeing your loved ones hurt.

And there is that, too: that they love him, and that he loves _them._

Their love may be in its early days, yet, still confined as it is to barely knowing its subject beyond mythic stories and rumours.

But _Mischief's_ love?

Complex, layered, too vividly and intricately alive for him being what he is: an almost stranger, an overprotective acquaintance, a kind of one-sided friend. Words only minimize it, the tender-hearted and dangerous-loyal affection that swirls around, under, and through all of his frenzied heavy.

 _"Because I love them,"_ Mischief had said. _"All of them."_ (Peter isn't so conceited as to think he'd meant the Hale Pack alone, then. In the very depths of his soul, he knows Mischief had meant _all of them._ The Hale region as a whole.)

 _"Of course I would kill for them,"_ he had said, _"of course I would die for them, of course I **already have.** They're **mine."**_

Mischief's heart hadn't tripped once. He'd spoken no lie.

 _I already have_ — killed? yes, they have ample evidence of that. _Died?_ When? How? How is he alive, now? And what on earth had they done to gain such a vehement supporter?

Derek pokes him.

Peter blinks out of his thoughts and pokes Derek back, on the tip of his nose. "Sorry," he says, more half-sheepish mirth than apologetic — "Are you worried about him; Mischief?"

Derek shrugs a wobbly nod. 

Peter gentles him into a hug, arms crossed behind his shoulders and chin resting atop his head; Derek's arms wind tightly around his back. He wonders how long it'll take Derek to grow out of this particular manner of hugging, and begins wishing vaguely (fruitlessly) that he'd stay like this forever.

"I am too," Peter says honestly. "Mischief is a worrisome creature."

Derek chuckles fleetingly against his chest and Peter's mouth quirks, a bit wry.

When they draw apart Peter describes to Derek how the meeting went: Roscoe's apparent spying, the other Pack's assumptions, what had happened with Mischief, with Victoria, with Rohese; Rohese's interaction with Mischief, Mischief's subsequent disappearing act, and, last but not least, Laura's beckoning the other Alphas of her region into a sleep-over.

"You make it sound like pillow fights and tea parties are gonna happen," Derek mutters under his breath.

"They very well might," Peter replies loftily.

Derek looks at him askance. Peter smiles winningly. Derek narrows his eyes. Then looks away, eyebrows furrowing and mouth turning down.

"Mischief Giliberto, huh?" — For, even if that is not his real surname, it might as well be, now. He is, at the very least, Mischief _of the Giliberto name._

And, just like that, Peter is thrown into solemnity right alongside his nephew. "Yes," he says.

Derek's shoulders roll in their sockets, uncomfortable.

"He needs Pack," Peter murmurs, "he's _needed_ Pack. And ours is in quite the upheaval at the moment. We are also-" how to put this delicately?- _"rigid_ in our ways. Or we were, before your sister."

Standing side-by-side, facing the feasting party, their gazes are instinctively drawn toward their Alpha.

Laura is working in perfect concert with Róisín; they're playing hostess, they're learning that sisterly bond they will live with for the rest of their lives. See: two young women, wide-spread dove-white arms tossing up a blanket, children shrieking as they swarm beneath the camellia-red fabric; the women hastily pull the blanket down over the children's heads; they lock eyes and the skin around those delicate organs crinkles as they grin, laugh, give over fully to a simple kind of rapture.

"She's so much better at this than Mom was," Derek says. His tone implies encouragement and soothing.

Peter levies him with a faint smile, "You overheard Talia and I talking, didn't you?"

Derek shrugs a bit like: _was kind of hard not to._

Peter inhales deep, exhales slow, and captures Derek's hand, "You in a social mood today, my dearest nephew?"

Derek scrunches up his nose, but begrudgingly nods, so Peter leads him out to the people.

* * *

Peter finds himself, a half-hour or so later, separated from Derek, discussing trade-routes with Kali, Julia, Hadassah, and Noah.

Noah's contribution to the conversation is split down the middle between his delighted surprise that there are trade-routes at all and his highly pragmatic human insight. (Peter makes precisely no qualms about showing off his best friend. Kali, in turn, makes no qualms about laughing at him for it, however embarrassed and scolding her impropriety might make her Emissary.)

Deucalion's packlands border the Hales', but Kali's and Ennis' are considerably farther away. Having Sacramento in their corner puts a link in the chain that they've never had before, and now seems as good a time as any to hash out how to put it to good use.

The Hales have lumber, meat, and spices, the Edingers have Luna's Monk, and the Gilibertos have furs, clothing, and art. The Sacramento Pack thrives on their Hotel Business, very mainstream and civilian-oriented, so they don't necessarily have any prevalent marketable merchandise; they do, however, have the means to the path, and can barter that way.

Hadassah and Noah are eventually distracted away by Roscoe and Hadassah's twins. Julia, muttering something about Roscoe being a Jeep and Noah being the only other person in the world who seems to see it, falls asleep on Kali's shoulder.

The turn of Peter and Kali's conversation - after she's thoroughly chewed him out about having had that coup she'd been craving _without_ her, damn him - somehow rambles onto the matter of the Siren.

Peter ruminates, with the strained delicacy of a fairly recent tragedy better weathered than anyone could've imagined, on how the Siren had so slyly crept into the Hales' collective subconsciousness.

 _"Nightmares?"_ Kali asks, incredulous.

"Nightmares," Peter confirms on a sigh. "The song It sang affected our wolves, first. A purely subliminal melody that was meant to lure us into a feral state — makes us easier prey, apparently."

Kali pulls a face. 

Peter waves it off. Continues: "For weeks before the actual... _incident_ occurred, we'd all been plagued by terrible dreams. None of us knew, of course, because our memories of them would essentially evaporate upon waking, and it hadn't been going on long enough for the restless nights to really register. We only discovered the full scope of what had happened to us... after."

Kali has not _stopped_ making that face. "Wow, uh," she starts. "That sounds — super shitty."

"Oh, Kali," Peter says smirkingly, "what a way with _words_ you have."

She shoves at him, "— Shut up."

Peter purses his lips against a smile, "I absolutely refuse, on all counts."

Her eyes spark, two little snapping fires, "Anybody ever tell you you're a Grade-A asshole?"

He gives her his most innocent stare. "No. Never. Were you about to?"

"Paleadnysa, give me strength," she mutters, aggrieved.

There is a moment of companionable silence between them. Kali breaks it, pointing at his pendant: "How are those working out for you guys?"

Her scent, a dip pen scraping across fresh vellum and a glass bottle brimming with gamy ink, becomes molten, so that the glass liquefies and pools onto the page like magma, spilling over with now-boiling ink, destroying whatever writing had been there.

Peter presses his fingertips to the cool silver of the triskele. "Well," he says, curt and wary.

She hums, chuckles abortively, muses, "You know, I don't think there's anybody else in the world who can make shit the way that Mischief does. Amulets, charms, weapons — give him a piece of metal and a day or two, and he'll come back with something Gods blessed amazing." A cloud darkens her face, "He was here, wasn't he? During the — _incident."_

"Yes," Peter answers, weighted.

Given the general secrecy that _must,_ at all times, surround the Nemeton - even as depleted as it is - Peter has been thus far compelled to omit its' involvement. This has also necessarily left him incapable of explaining the sentence that Talia had laid upon Mischief's head, which has made (and continues to make) speaking on the rest of Mischief's efforts difficult.

"What happened?" Kali asks, point-blank.

Peter — cannot answer her.

Kali's lip curls as she waits. Her patience runs thin quickly. "Because he came back home worse than I've ever seen him, Peter. And, trust me when I tell you, I've seen him _bad._ But that was the first time it really hit me — this kid's gonna get himself _dead._ And for what? Fucking _why?"_

Peter's breath has shallowed, his eyes itch, his heart _aches._ But it would be beyond indecorous to allow any of what he feels to become perceptible. He keeps his scent ruthlessly suppressed, his face blank.

Tree branches rustle in the distance. There are people all around them, playing or eating or talking. Very few are sleeping.

"Perhaps," Peter begins, hushed, "we ought to have this conversation elsewhere; somewhere more private?"

"Got that covered," Kali tells him, still drenched in all her momentum and heat. She lifts her wrist to show him a bangle depicting the three wise monkeys: _see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil._ The bangle is pulsing with a smoky purple aura.

"I see," Peter says, with some irony.

"You're not going to tell me anything, are you?"

"— No."

Kali looks down, ponderous. Julia stirs on her shoulder. Kali pats her head, settles her. "He felt guilty," she says, so soft that it's nearly a whisper. "Like the Siren was all his fucking fault."

Peter's heart clenches sharply inside his chest.

She sighs deeply. Pushes her hair back from her face and squints up at the sun-streaked sky. "I'd blame your Pack for that — but that's just him, his _way._ Feels responsible for, Gods — everything."

 _Why?_ Peter wants to ask, to beg. _Whatever for?_ But aren't those some of the same questions Kali had been asking him earlier? He'd had no answers to give her. She, he suspects, will have no answers to give him.

All they have is what Mischief has already given them.

— It isn't enough.

"You know what scares me the most?" she says, almost absently, as if she's presenting this to him without thinking it through. "That it's gonna kill him, anyway. No matter what I do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
> 
> 1) #mesheepishlyforgettingthescentthingeveryotherfreakingchapter #cmonsumire #getyourshittogether
> 
> a) just in case you're wondering why mischief's confession, which is basically, 'i did all this shit cause i care,' is not enough -- read: mischief's interactions with the hale pack amount to, like, 4, and mischief's level of: i'm willing to do this shit bc i care about you, is completely insane to the average person
> 
> b) does it comfort you to know that derek's creeperwolf-ness came into being long before the hale fire ever happened? it comforts me... and then i _consider the implications,_ and i get kinda sad, lol
> 
> c) kali, to peter, several chapters ago: bro, broooooo, let's have a coup. pretty pretty please?  
> peter: you totally just want to see me kill my sister don't you  
> kali: ... i mean, so what if i do?  
> peter, as if speaking to a child: _no._  
>  kali: ugh
> 
> d) small note on werewolf physiology: hello, healing factor! wolves can suffer Siren-induced nightmares for _weeks_ and not look/feel tired. jfc, jealousy abounds; _i_ want that power, goodness gracious.
> 
> psst: soulhugs~~~~~~
> 
> psst-psst: luck willing, i post every wednesay/thursday ✌🍀
> 
> [Next Chapter: Stiles returns; Noah's *dude, that's totally my kid* senses tingle harder; the Nemeton is a little shit]


	35. Reunion (Part IV)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a hefty boi (& a little early), but I hope you guys like it and that it finds you all in good health!! xoxoxo
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Stiles has PTSD, PTSD Flashback & Mild Dissociation, Touch Aversion, (memories of) Bigotry & Prejudice, (memories of) Blood & Violence, Grief

Stiles sits with himself awhile. Waits for his head and his heart to calm down, to get along again.

Madeline Argent. Lorraine's beloved _Maddy._ Now Lydia's Grandmother-in-law. (Something which, for all intents and purposes, Stiles caused.)

A bad thing? Not as yet, although he'll have to keep an eye on it. A mind-fuck? Yes. So much the yes.

He's encountered so many of his ghosts today. Too many. But if he wants to get closer to the Hale Pack, he's kind of signing up for that, isn't he? Deep breaths, man.

When he feels ready - for a given value of ready - he follows the line of his soul that's attached to his Alpha. He isn't expecting it to land him in the middle of the Hales' backyard.

Immediately, Stiles becomes so caught up in the Hale house that he's momentarily blind to everything else around him. Four stories high, massively wide, with a wraparound veranda and an antiquated victorian look. _Glorious_ blue. He'd never imagined it being blue. Never imagined it being anything except what he'd lived with for more than half of his formative life.

Black. Death writ in ashen floorboards and charcoal-crumbling beams.

Being inside had been different. So alien that the comparison hadn't been able to take hold of him like this, grasped tight around his heart and squeezing until saltwater begins to well up the canals of his neck.

It's a disgusting enchantment: being forced to suffer the juxtaposition between the here-now and the before-after, tangible against his skin. Insoluble and heavy. Near impossible to ignore.

Stiles sucks in a choked breath.

The world resolves itself around the house in pieces. A bright spring sky languidly conspiring with drunken tree branches, susurrus-singing a lysergic hymn. The Preserve behind him and a field of clovers ahead. His packmates consorting with the other Packs, sitting on colourful sheets or capering about with the kids, a half-eaten communal feast at their feet. Ramaah and Dante and a few others he doesn't recognize trying to sell their wares.

— A voice beside him saying, in a tone that implies they've been talking at somebody completely unresponsive for a _while,_ and it's starting to freak them out, "Hey — hey, kid? Hey, y' all right?"

Stiles exhales sharply and tears his gaze away from the house's visage. "Yeah. Yup. Totally fine."

The person speaking to him is the green mohawk guy who'd been carting the twins around while they'd all been waiting for Rohese earlier. "You sure?" he asks with sincere concern. "'Cause you were spacin' out pretty hard, there."

Stiles quirks a smile beneath his mask. "I'm sure. Not a werewolf, are you?"

"No, sir," the guy grins, wide and proud. "I'm a Druid with the Sacramento Pack, um," he reaches out a hand, "Andrew Quon."

Stiles stares at the hand. Recognizes how impolite it would be to turn down such a _simple fucking gesture,_ but his goddamn arm cramps against the movement in loud objection and his heart trumpets half-hysterically in his ears and his skin crawls until even the _possibility_ of human contact becomes equal to, if not worse than, plunging his fucking hand through his greatest love's chest cavity.

"Not so good at the whole _touching_ thing," Stiles admits finally, feeling like an enormous dickhead. "Sorry."

Andrew subtly pulls his hand in with a shrug, happy-go-lucky and unbothered. "No worries," he says, and moves on: "You're Mischief, aren't you?"

"Ah-hah, yep. That's me."

"Sofía-" Andrew nods to a very short curvaceous lady who's haggling with Ramaah over a hairpin- "that's my sister - she and I have been helping the twins with their gifts for goin' on six months now. Those dampeners of yours really are somethin', we wouldn't have gotten anywhere without 'em. And, I am proud to say, we almost don't need 'em anymore."

"Really? That's — honestly, that's incredible," Stiles says, feeling some butterfly portion of the weight on his shoulders fly off.

Andrew chuckles, "Not much compared to what you've done, and we've got you to thank for bein' able to do it at all."

Stiles cringes a little. "Don't thank me, really. It's—"

 _"Mischief!"_ Elodie shrieks, running at him full-tilt.

On Elodie's heels: the twins, Hadassah, Roscoe, and — Dad. 

_God,_ Dad. 

"Wo-ho-ho, young lady," Andrew says, and a soil-slop frog almost as big as Roscoe rises up out of the earth between Elodie and Stiles' bodies. Elodie's collision-course, therefore, smacks her right into the frog instead, leaving her drenched in thick mud.

She stumbles back, blinks down at herself, and makes a face of pure repulsion, "Ewww!"

The twins burst into an ill-concealed fit of laughter; their mother's expression grows playfully delighted; (and, unbeknownst to Stiles, Noah is flashing back to a time when his son used to mispronounce Mieczysław, a time when he was called _Mischief,_ until Claudia began forgetting — until she began worse than forgetting).

"Now, now," Andrew chides warmly, "a little mud never hurt anybody."

Elodie glares at Andrew in horrified disbelief.

Andrew offers her a mellow smile, "Shouldn't you be askin' first, before you go around huggin' people might not want to be hugged?"

Elodie's face instantly clears with comprehension, then crumples. Her head bows, her foot scuffs at the ground below. "I'm sorry, Mischief," she says gloomily. "I forgot."

"Oh, honey," Stiles sighs, wishing — lots of things. Hating himself a little. Roscoe, in his wisdom, moves to give Elodie the hug that Stiles can't. Stiles rounds Andrew's frog to crouch down close, "It's okay. I was having a lot of good days, you know? I almost forgot, too. Don't be sad, hm?" He chuckles at her formerly white dress, "Nunna's gonna give you _such_ a lecture when she sees you."

Elodie perks up with an offended gasp, "It's not _my_ fault!"

"Ellie, Ellie!" the twins cry, one climbing up the frog's slippery back while the other pulls urgently on Elodie's sleeve, obviously wanting to cheer their new friend up. "Look! Come on!"

Elodie throws Stiles a tiny asking glance.

"Go," Stiles smiles, soft. "Make it a little bit your fault."

With a giggling grin, Elodie rushes off to make even more of a mess of herself as she and the boys turn the reluctantly obliging froggy golem into an improvised carnival ride.

"You do not like to be touched?" Hadassah asks, eyebrows furrowing.

"Ah, sometimes," Stiles says lightly. Standing, he gives Andrew a grateful nod, "Thanks for that."

"Never you mind," Andrew replies.

"How are you, Hadassah?" Stiles asks, eager to avoid talking to the ghost lingering on the edge of their party. 

Dad always liked to observe, gather information, wait until he actually had a thing to say before he'd open his mouth to say it. Stiles used to think that he'd leeched all the sound out of him, somehow, by being born or by just being — Stiles.

Hadassah's mouth cuts a vicious line of hard-fought happy, "I am free, my children are free, my Pack is free. I am Queen."

"Yes," Stiles agrees, glad for it, "yes, you are."

She tilts her head, "You haven't visited me."

Stiles glances past her, finds Kali, finds _Peter,_ finds Julia, lying sound asleep on Kali's lap. He fleetingly picks Derek and Laura out of the crowd, too, before returning his attention to Hadassah at better ease. 

"I know it's the most clichéd excuse in the book," Stiles tells her, "but I swear I'm being completely honest with you when I say I've been busy."

"I believe you," Hadassah smirks, freckled face full of cunning and handsome — Aphrodite Areia comes to mind. "This one, Roscoe, comes on your behalf. Nags my boys to behave better and threatens his teeth on anyone thinking too fondly of my dead Mate."

 _"Good boy,"_ Stiles says solemnly, drawing a bag full of pitted olives out of his pocket and laying them down for Roscoe to joyously consume.

Hadassah throws her head back and hurls her mirth up to the Gods.

Dad takes advantage of the short lull to ask a question that skids across Stiles' brain like wheels skidding across black ice.

Like breaks squealing.

Lungs pumping.

Time slowing.

Gun barrel lifting.

And it's not even the military who kill him, it's not the war breaking out, it's not the smoke-reaped air. It's a group of unrelated humans, angry that their Sheriff has been consorting with all of those devil creatures, those _heinous_ things.

Stiles tries to push the memory down. Blink back the tears. Swallow. Breathe.

Roscoe is carefully winding around him in circles that never tighten to touch, creaking and whining plaintively. Hadassah's posture has shifted into something anxious and fiercely protective. Dad is all soft confusion, worry. Andrew seems unaware of the atmosphere's oppressive turn.

"Uh, sorry," his mind's eye is cluttered with distant echoes of the shooting. Hands warm and slick with blood. Screams. Howls. _Get ahold of yourself, Stiles._ "I didn't—. Could you, um, run that by me again?"

Dad shifts slightly, chewing on his thoughts — superimposed over him, glitter-glare, before-after Dad, upset at all the lies, tongue twisted sharp in disbelief.

The backdrop of the Hale house, consumed by a heat haze of charred recollection.

Dad's voice, a relieving, agonizing thing, so long lost: "I was just wondering if maybe you knew the Gajos', you have a, uh," his tone stretches wry, "pretty striking family resemblance."

Stiles' vision drools and sways. It's as if his past is being printed, filmy and opaque, over his reality. He can tell the difference, he can — he can _work through it._ He can — he...

Feels his father's last breath pour into his ear: _"Go. Run."_

Blinks.

And — breathes.

And —

"M-maybe," he begins. Tics his fingers off on his legs. He is _here._ He is — he is _now._ "I — maybe."

Feels — the squelch of his father's shirt beneath the knit of his palms. An untamable crimson gush.

But Dad is — alive. Right in front of him. Alive.

_Fucking hell._

What is he even saying? What was the question again?

"Maybe," he repeats, softer, _stuck._

"My wife, Claudia, was a Gajos," Dad says, in that hushed soothing manner he might use on a desperate man swinging a blade at a cashier. "I wonder if you two were related."

... What?

Stiles almost says _no,_ feels the raw denial calcifying in his chest, pulling taut all of his muscles. His memories shriek at him: _"Go. Run. Don't let them kill you, too."_

Derek stops him. Creeps up behind their party and half startles them all. 

Stiles jumps the highest, harshes out, "For God's sake, Der, would you wear a bell? You're gonna give me a fucking heart attack," and then winces at his overfamiliarity, his outward temper. "— Sorry. You just," a jerk of the shoulder, "startled me. It's fine. I'm, I'm fine."

Hadassah frowns severely. Derek's expression is all sourwolf.

Stiles chuckles a fugitive exhale. You'd think his heart beating an adrenaline rush would afford his small lie some cover, but apparently not.

Kali cuts in, over and through them all, "Heya, little brother, welcome back. Why don't you come and join me in the shade?"

It doesn't seem to matter that, by the trees, he is already _in_ the shade. With a flash of her eyes and an uncompromising air, Kali drags Stiles away without laying a single finger on him.

Derek catches up to them, steers them on to the screened porch's steps, to the side porch that's hard-flanked by high rising tree trunks, to a pair of gliders that they can relax in; and, addressing Stiles, says: "You can set up a boundary if you need to."

Thus speaking, he walks away to accompany Roscoe in guarding their space against any unwanted intruders. Stiles sends the rush of affection he feels through their packbond. Derek sits down, hard. Stiles almost finds it within himself to laugh.

Kali asks him no questions, presses him none, simply keeps him company there until he is feeling less troubled. They play a card game or two, chatting about weather and trade routes.

"I'm not gonna ask you if you're okay," Kali begins, after they've spent around three hours like this, "because I know from experience that you'll just try to bullshit me—"

"I'm _Fine."_

"Ha ha," Kali says. "Liar."

Stiles rolls his eyes.

All seriousness, she continues: "Did anybody say anything to you?"

Stiles gives her a baffled look. She waves a hand impatiently.

"Anybody hurt your feelings? Fuck with you? You're basically my little brother, Mischief, that holds weight—"

 _"What?_ No — Kali—"

"I'm serious. I'll fucking kill them—"

"I'm serious, too!" Stiles half-shrills. "Jesus, calm down, nobody said or did anything to me, okay? I promise. I just—" Stiles heaves a sigh. Twirls his fingers into the hair tie on his wrist, and fidgets. 

He could tell her that he came back before he was actually ready like an idiot. He could tell her that his touch-aversion returned with a vengeance after being negligent for _weeks,_ and poor fucking Elodie got the brunt of it. He could tell her that he was overwhelmed, that's all, and she rescued him flawlessly.

But she is his Alpha, his sister, _Kali._

There is this part of him that's impaled on all of the moments between himself and his father, when he was desperate to lie with good intentions and still be loved, when he was desperate to tell the truth and still be believed.

"Sometimes," that part of him wants to say, "it's very difficult to remember that the world _isn't_ ending. That all my dead are alive, even if they aren't who I remember them to be and they have no idea who I am. And I want - so badly, Kali, it's impossible to describe how _badly_ \- I want them to _keep on_ living. 

"Every preventative measure I take — I can't help but think, what if this doesn't work?

"What if _I_ don't work?

"What if it falls apart all over again?"

Out loud, he concedes only this: "I have _work_ to do, Kali. So much. For you, for them," his lungs shiver, his eyes ache, "for everyone I've lost."

"But you don't have to do it _alone,"_ she reminds him, somewhere between kind and beseeching.

He smiles sadly at her. "Some of it," he says, "some of it I do."

She presses her lips together, eyes full of promise and love and all of her fear for him. "I'll be here," she says finally, "whenever you need me."

Stiles' smile softens, "I know."

* * *

When dusk begins sweeping darkly into the horizon, Kali leaves him to carry Julia and herself to their caravan's bed. Stiles tells her, again, that he is fine, and fine where he is.

The treaty signing had borne a long night and the feasting has borne a long day; many have piled together to sleep upon the blankets laid out, heaps of bodies that rise and fall in a sea of slumberous breathing. Some have been invited inside to sleep in guest rooms, if that's their preference.

No one has bothered him.

Derek and Roscoe remain vigilant in front of the screen door that leads from that part of the porch to this one, and most head into the house through the back doors anyway.

Stiles has moved from glider to bannister, one eye on the back yard ahead, another on the Preserve beside.

He is much calmer now, but wistful.

Wistful for a world so much worse than this. A world that no longer exists.

And a little ashamed, to be missing what he's been fighting so hard to escape.

Noah Stilinski is alive.

But Stiles' Dad? He died. 

Three years ago, he died.

_In another life._

The Stiles that exists here, the one who is nine, the one with two adopted brothers and a best friend who might as well be a brother all the same — Stiles... _Mischief,_ is going to do everything in his power to keep him from having to watch his father die.

To keep him from having to watch his _world_ die.

Derek approaches him, blinking muzzily.

Stiles snorts. "Off to bed, bunny?"

Derek frowns. "Bunny," he repeats flatly.

"Dude, you look like a child in need of a bedtime story and a cupful of warm milk. Bunny is exceedingly appropriate."

Derek opens his mouth — and yawns.

Stiles laughs at him. "Go to _sleep."_

Derek makes a face, rolls his eyes, and files inside through one of the side doors.

Stiles, seeing him off, returns to his meditations.

* * *

By the time Peter had felt - and seen - Mischief's distress, he had already been delivered from Kali's company into Deucalion's; believing himself unable to abandon his duties to help, he'd drawn upon Derek's packbond with a frustrated sort of urgency. 

Derek had replied with a flurry of sentiment that'd been half sarcastic and half rushed. 

Peter had witnessed, out of the corner of his eyes, Kali and Derek all but towing Mischief away from his tiny crowd with a measure of relief.

From there - thank blessed Mother Moon - honeyed melancholy had begun flooding the packbond that had been so rife with wretched anguish before.

"Worrisome creature," Peter mutters to himself, chest tight, as soon as he is able to shake the demanding politics of company- or else leave them to Laura for a while - intent on finding his presumed Seer.

Mischief is ensconced in the side porch, lounging on the bannister, back leant against one of the roof's posts. His face is turned toward the depths of the forest; thick, lush brown curls cascading down from where they are snarled in an ornamental flower.

— Peter _remembers_ that flower... doesn't he?

He saw it — in a dream.

... Didn't he?

A whimsied breeze sweeps Mischief's hair up into crooking arches until each windswept tendril becomes a heaven-bound branch, yearning for the Preserve's vasty groves, restricted only by an overripe Tigerlily, all dented metal and genesis. 

No, not branches, Peter realizes, _roots._

And, all at once, the nightmares that the Siren had caused are _there;_ they do not hit him with the speed and crushing intensity of a freight train, but rather with the inexorably gentle weight of a feather that, lighting upon an unstable avalanche, causes the landslide to kill millions.

Peter breathes through it.

Fills his lungs with the scent of the Library of Alexandria, as it was in the midst of conflict, riots, wanton destruction, topped with pregnant storm clouds bleeding out a sea in slow, hypnotic torrents. Says, "Mischief."

Doesn't even mean to say it. 

But the name dances through his veins, frenzied and wild and so Gods damned accurate. It is not the type of thing that could ever be contained by so _infinitesimal_ a power as the barrier of his own teeth.

Mischief looks at him.

Breathing ceases to be an object.

"Peter," Mischief murmurs, sweet. "Hi."

"Hello," Peter replies, ruthlessly wrenching his thoughts back into order. "I have a feeling we've had this interaction before."

"I have a feeling we'll have it again, dude," Mischief says, teasing. "Greetings. Salutations. It's a thing people do."

"Is it? I hadn't noticed."

"Really? How on earth did such a rude Left Hand survive the perils of high society?"

_"Expertly."_

Mischief snorts. Drinks in the sight of Peter with an odd, starved sort of greed. "My Pack," he says — stops. Throat clicks a swallow. "My Pack, before I met the Gilibertos, they're dead."

Peter thinks an arrow through the gut would've been less painful. _(A graveyard full of his last name. His family.)_

Gods above.

"I saw, watched, all of them die. I tried, but I, I couldn't keep them safe. I couldn't do _anything."_ Mischief's hands are flush with his gas mask as he huffs, "A goddamn tragedy of errors." Spindly fingers tap, rhythmically, one after the other. "I never really, uh, grieved? There was always... there was never any time. But I miss them." Then, dreamy, vacant: _"Can_ I miss them?"

 _"Yes,"_ Peter says, with all the force of his heart cracking open.

Mischief starts. Exhales shakily. "Yeah," he breathes. "Yeah, maybe — but I can do more than that, now, can't I?"

Mischief swings his legs over the bannister, hops off of his perch, and drifts in close. He stares at Peter's hand with a singular sort of effort, trembling and hesitating, so vulnerable it hurts. 

"I know you're not really going to understand this," Mischief moves in flinches and starts, fluttery, terrified, until he is cradling Peter's hand in both of his. "But..." Mischief bows down low, shaking like a leaf, to lean his forehead against Peter's knuckles. _(—presses their foreheads together in a moment of weakness Peter can only feel disgusted by—)_

A kiss would be less intimate. Less cherished.

"Thank you," Mischief says, as sincere as the sky is to the mountain, "for giving me another life."

_(—Maybe... In another life... I could love you back—)_

And for all of Peter's unbreakable decorous impassivity, this is when the levy breaks; when the tears can be held back no longer and fat drops of saltwater roll down heated cheeks unaccustomed to such self-inflicted rain. 

Mischief tenderly releases his hand, unfolds himself, and goes still. "Peter Hale," he says, hushed, like it's a marvel, "are you crying for me?"

Peter clears his throat, manages, "I don't think there are many people who could've heard all that and _not_ cried."

"Someone could've," Mischief murmurs. _(—viscera between his fingers, the messy urge to squeeze: an inevitable breaking of fragility, it would be so **easy.** )_ Yes, Peter thinks, with strange and distressed knowing, someone could've. "But not you," spoken with the quietest sugar-crusted hope, "not anymore."

Peter gulps a dewy breath. Shudders.

_Not **anymore.**_

Roscoe takes that moment to bound for Peter's face, apparently intent on replacing every indication of sorrow with slobber. Peter sputters and curses and struggles. The huge nuisance of a beast pushes off of him, making the creak-clap sounds a rusty metal door might make upon being slammed shut and galloping excitedly all about Peter's legs.

Mischief is seized by a seemingly uncontrollable bout of laughter.

"Glad to see you find this gaucherie so _amusing,"_ Peter drawls, grimacing as he scrubs his face thoroughly with a handkerchief.

"No," Mischief wheezes, overwhelmed by mirth, flapping a hand, "I'm sorry," he approaches the tail end of his amusement with chuckle-ridden sounds of sympathy, clicking his fingers at Roscoe to calm down and return to his position as sentinel. "Sorry," he says again on a sigh, sunset eyes sparkling, "but it is good to laugh."

Their packbond is a tide sweep-crashing and rolling on the beach, not hiding, not happy, but settled; fresh lavender blooms in antiquary libraries filled with dusty daylight, and all Peter can say is: "Yes," because it's just as good to _see_ him laugh — despite the circumstances.

Mischief regards him carefully, thoughtfully. "Peter... Do you wanna help me with something?"

Peter's heart sings a hitherto unknown, unheard melody, and Peter, who is not the type of person to make blind agreements with anybody, says: "Of course."

The puckish grin that beams from Mischief's eyes at his answer is more than worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a) Stiles: *teleports*  
> Andrew: you have _got_ to teach me that trick.  
> Stiles: 404.exe  
> Andrew: *waxes on about how he knows it must be difficult and require a lot of power because the _feeling_ mischief gives off when he does it, and that's with mischief obviously trying to minimize the effect, etc, etc, but it'd still be _so frikken cool*_  
>  Stiles: *unresponsively staring into middle distance*  
> Andrew: ... dude... dude? ... u ok, bro?
> 
> b) that feel when your mental health is glitching you tf out (not to mention, people who you personally witnessed die are, like, _everywhere)_ , but party = small talk & you gotta commit
> 
> c) kali, packbond going cray-cray: *squints at mischief* why tf isn't he just teleporting away???  
> kali: ... oh, fuck it *packmom mode activated*  
> meanwhile, peter, as subtly as possible so as not to lose face: hey, derek, go save our seer, he's freaking tf out  
> derek: already on my way ✌
> 
> d) catch here-now peter looking at before-after peter with something approaching horror
> 
> e) when, like, 1/3rd of the things you've set up come full circle, hhhhh, woooooo! & also, hey, steter! lol
> 
> f) i love you guys & soulhugs to the end of the universe~ 🌺🌺🌺💞💞


	36. Deucalion Kokkinos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Trigger Warnings :** Alcohol, Drama, Bigotry & Prejudice(-ish), Stiles has PTSD (lite)
> 
> i'm not the _most_ sure about this chapter, but i did my very best and i hope you like it!!! i hope you're all doing well, being safe and staying healthy &c, so much the love, lovelies!!!!

"Deucalion," Mischief says, approaching him.

(Meanwhile Peter, on the other side of the green, is approaching Marco.)

"Mischief," Deucalion replies, surprised and delighted in equal measure to be graced with such a one's attention.

"How's the good guy thing goin'?"

Deucalion laughs, "I do my best and pray."

Mischief huffs. Clears his throat, "I know it's a little late, but, uh, I should probably formally apologize for, you know," he shrugs a shoulder with a bit of irony, "never officially being introduced but talking to you anyway?"

Deucalion chews on a smile, "You may correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe our first interaction involved you _saving my life."_

"Well," Mischief says, "not inaccurate. But! Laws, customs," he drags his hands out of his pockets and twinkles his fingers, "all that jazz."

Deucalion shakes his head with a mirthful, relenting sigh. "In that case, you are forgiven, Gods' child, and consider this our _proper_ introduction."

(Peter offers Marco a drink, one Left Hand to another. Colette Edinger is more than happy to supply the Luna's Monk, he notes, so why not take advantage?)

Mischief falters momentarily at the epithet, then shakes himself and draws two metal trinkets out of his pocket, "I wanted to give you these, as a part of my apology — or as a gift, whichever way means you'll take them."

Deucalion is not about to deny any gift from a God, whatever form it may take, but he cannot keep himself from asking: "What are they?"

"Charms," Mischief answers easily, placing a tiny bear figurine into Deucalion's palm and tapping the rune etched on its paw. The bear is immediately cloaked in a smoky lavender haze, "Keeps you from being heard — heartbeat 'n all, my dude." A falcon follows the bear, with a rune on its brow that releases the same lavender aura once pressed, "And this little guy keeps you from being seen, in a manner of speaking."

Magic bubbles like raw mercury in the air, gamy and intoxicating.

"They're beautiful," Deucalion breathes. "Thank—"

"Let's go try them out, huh?" Mischief speaks over Deucalion's gratitude as if abashed by it, turning on his heel and marching resolutely forward.

"I— well— if you insist," Deucalion manages.

An aversion to thanks, cloaked in nature, justice, and abrupt alterations to fortune; if Mischief is not Dirgen's face in this world then he is, at the very least, descended from Him.

Mischief leads Deucalion to a secluded party comprised of the Hales' Left Hand, a few of Ennis' people, and much more of his own, all heavily perfumed by wolfsbane and rum.

Peter's eyes flick over to Mischief's, an implacable understanding passing between them.

"Marco," Peter begins in a low, silken tone, "Is it true that you've been having as hard a time with your Alpha as I'd been having with mine? Before she was dethroned, of course."

"Who told you that?" Marco snaps, hackles raised. Not denying — _wary._

"Oh, some flighty gossip," Peter says airily. Mischief twitches. "Who tells me anything, Marco? It's a valid question."

Marco narrows his eyes, "You're a slimy fuckin' snake, Peter Hale. You think I'm gonna give you shit?"

"He's asking for me," Mischief cuts in, smoothly withdrawing from Deucalion's side to glide up to Peter's. "Just, I helped Laura and Peter with Talia, right? Figured I could maybe help you, too, if the cause was great enough. If we're _wrong,_ though: awesome. Tell us to fuck off and we can go on our merry way."

Marco rolls his shoulders, gaze straying down thoughtfully.

"Perhaps you'd like another drink?" Peter says, somewhere between poison and sugar. He doesn't wait for an answer, simply refills Marco's cup. Colette, without prompting, doses the alcohol with Luna's Monk.

She is the only one, besides Deucalion, to see the small trickle of mountain ash rolling over the cup's rim and diving in. Her stiff expression surrenders to intrigue.

"We only want to help," Mischief says, hushed, kind.

"And it _would_ be interesting," Peter murmurs, his slow-sweet aconite the perfect counterpoint to Mischief's tender coaxing, "to see you with red eyes."

There is no heart-stuttering lie in them, but the mountain statues in Peter's scent loom tall and grave without any fog or moss to soften their cruel-carved features, and Mischief — isn't speaking to Marco, anyway.

Marco is either oblivious, or too caught up in their web to care: he hisses a breath in through his teeth and downs the entirety of his cup like a shot, seeking courage.

Colette takes a deliberate, if subtle, step back.

"My Alpha... he's got this vision, a vision of _peace._ He thinks we can coexist with the Hunters, with _civilians,_ without any repercussions?" Marco laughs disdainfully. "He is such a fool."

Deucalion's focus sharpens, his gut a thousand ice-glass shards splintering.

"Well," Peter drawls, an ill-omened sparkle in his eyes that says he's in on a joke everyone else most certainly is _not_ , "the treaty we signed today _does_ seem to provide support and ammunition toward that very purpose..."

Mischief knocks his knuckles to Peter's and gives him a slightly playful, stay-on-task look. There is something intimate in the way Peter's entire countenance seems to warm and concede.

"Sure," Marco grants, "sure, but you heard what that lady said. Our _region_ is safe, nowhere else. You think, what? one city, two counties, and a fucking compound are going to be enough to change the whole-ass _world?_ The Argents are just as soft as Deucalion is, we got lucky with them — and only, _only_ because he-" pointing at Mischief- "killed off the bad seeds first." 

Mischief's scent, his heart, wavers. Peter sways closer, as close as he can without touching.

Marco continues: "Deucalion thinks that, somehow, without getting his hands bloody _at all,_ peace is just gonna _happen!_ And then, and _then,_ he wants us to reveal ourselves to the humans? Like that's not gonna start a fucking war?" Mischief flinches, hard, scent warping. "Are you shitting me? I love my Alpha - like a brother - I do, but he is just too naïve to lead. He's gonna get us all killed."

"His meeting with Gerard," Peter wonders philosophically, "you don't think it changed him?"

Marco is silent for a moment. "No," he says, finally. "Not enough."

Mischief scratches his forehead, tangles his hand in his hair, crouches with a groaning sigh. "Deucalion. Tap the runes."

Deucalion does. The lavender auras die.

Marco twists around to stare. His features distort, the shift clanging into him with all the force of his drunkenly perceived humiliation and betrayal.

 _"Marco,"_ Deucalion growls, but his Beta is too angry for submission.

Mischief clicks his fingers.

Marco falls instantly to sleep.

Deucalion catches him, eases him to the ground.

"Sorry, man," Mischief says. "You needed—" he stops. Elbows braced on his knees, his hands are pressed almost painfully into his gas mask. The libraries in his scent have become the banks of an incorrigible sea.

"I needed to hear that," Deucalion finishes for him. "I'm ashamed to have been so unaware of my Left Hand's concerns. Thank you, for revealing them to me."

Mischief's lungs cease, his sun-glazed eyes fluttering across the planes of Deucalion's face. "Weirdo," he says roughly, "thanking me for that."

Deucalion offers him a small, saddened smile, "It was an act worthy of praise."

"Yes," Peter agrees, "it was."

Mischief casually backhands Peter's knee.

Peter grins, sharp and wide, like he's just won something.

"Listen," Mischief tells him hesitatingly, "he was wrong. But he was also — kind of right? Peace is going to be, it's... It's work. Hard work. Dirty work. And the humans," he returns to standing and shrugs a little helplessly, "they're not ready, yet. Maybe someday, but not yet."

Deucalion takes a deep breath and — understands.

He will have to live with this for a while, digest it, speak with his Left Hand and the rest of his Pack. His vision isn't going to change but, perhaps, it could serve to be a bit broader.

Besides: "Far be it from me," hauling Marco onto his shoulder and grinning, "to ignore the advice of a God."

"A— wha— I'm not——"

Deucalion simply shakes his head with a deep-hearted chuckle as he walks away. Really, after all that, how could he possibly believe otherwise?

* * *

Watching Deucalion stride off into the distance with his charge in a fireman's carry.

"I can't believe," Mischief says faintly, "that he actually thinks I'm the reincarnation of a God."

Their bond is dancing with a sense of accomplishment, stained forever by pervasive melancholy; the air is free and bright with ancient books turned birds over a begrudging sea, wild lavender blooming in the corners.

Colette says, "What did you expect, man? You drag people out of the water before they even realize they're drowning," rolls her kohl shaded eyes, spins on her heel, and quits them.

Mischief makes a flailing sort of noise.

Peter's mouth flirts with the idea of a smile.

The world is — right, with Mischief in it, with Mischief _near him._

His heart sings.

But, of course, when the new day dawns and all of the delegates depart, Mischief must go also, with Kali and his Pack.

"Lusagaria," Kali says at him while everyone is loading up, half-asleep and more wolf than anything.

Peter blinks at her. "Yes?"

"My compound," she says, rubbing her eyes roughly, squinting at him, patting him on the head. Peter pats her head back, highly entertained. "Come there. Lusagaria. 'Kay?"

Peter raises his eyebrows, "What makes you think I won't have other business to attend to? Or that my own Pack won't be celebrating?"

"Laura's— is she— your Pack _never_ celebrates."

Peter smirks, "That was more Talia's failing, you'll remember."

"Damn," Kali says, leaning against him and digging her bony chin into his shoulder. Peter manages not to wince by some supreme force of will.

"Aw," he coos, "did you want me to come?"

Kali steps back with a heavy sigh. Searches his eyes. "Mischief has two packmates here," she says, and Peter's heart attempts flight. In a secret whisper: "You're one of them, aren't you?"

"Yes," Peter admits, just as secret.

Kali's eyes scrunch up, gooey and affectionate, "That's why."

Peter clears his throat, looks away from her. Mischief is helping Raamah pull her leftover wares into one of the Giliberto caravans. "So you _do_ want me to come," he teases, almost absent.

She whacks him upside the head, clicking her teeth, "Oh, nevermind you fucking insufferable fucker—"

"I'll come," he says. Kali freezes. Peter half-smiles at her, "I'll come."

Kali grins, all teeth; bounces away with a triumphant, "WOO!"

Peter chuckles to himself, overindulgent and fond. He needs to speak with Laura anyway, about — a lot of things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the funny thing is that kali & peter don't think they're friends....
> 
> _soulhugs~~_
> 
> [Next up: Noah & Peter talk, Kali's Pack returns home, and some revelations are had]


	37. Reunion Ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tigger Warnings :** Grief, Referenced Alcohol Abuse, Referenced: Stiles has PTSD, Dealing with Bigotry & Prejudice, Hard Conversations, Minor Character Death

Hadassah has learned many things since her Mate's demise.

She has learned her boys, laughing and free, high on the glut of security, finding comfort in their own skins.

She has learned her motherhood, unhindered and blooming tender in the depths of her womb.

She has learned her people. And, in that, an intense respect for leadership, for humility, for _humanity._

Talia had once been upheld in her mind as a myth-kissed reality, someone she'd wanted to emulate, live up to. But Talia's motherhood leaves no kindly impression, and all of the things Hadassah had formerly attributed to her had been truly achieved by either Mischief or her Left Hand.

Hadassah no longer owns any wish to be alike with her. She must be herself, only. She must rule in _her_ way.

She could never be Talia's kind of Queen, and live with herself.

Hadassah will not ridicule Talia, she will not blame her for disappointing that childish idolatry, but she is savagely, ruthlessly glad that Talia is no longer her Sister Alpha — that title belongs to Talia's daughter, now.

Mischief had, half a year ago, to her, been a Devil. But he is just a boy. A boy who she owes everything. A boy with troubles of his own.

As she leaves the Pack that she had once wanted _her_ Pack to be, her spirit soars with all of its knowing. She has grown. She will _keep_ growing.

And her Pack will grow with her, strong and _good._

Beautiful.

So long as this world stays turning.

* * *

* * *

Peter stands on the front porch beside Noah as a motley crew of caravans, SUVs, and motorcycles go thundering off toward the main roads.

They're still standing there when the rest of Peter's Pack has gone back inside, when the anarchy of breakfast has mounted within the house. The Arthurian armouries in Noah's scent are alive and breathless with activity, the very new - but already incredibly steadfast - packbond they share beats with a nervous need that keeps Peter rooted, patient.

"Stiles started having panic attacks after his mom died," Noah says, at last. "Started biting his nails, too. I tried giving him gum; putting garlic, then pepper, then mint on them." Noah snorts, "Would you believe, he'd start to _like the taste._ Nothing worked." Sighing, all love and sorrow, "He used to chew them bloody all the goddamn time. I don't know when he stopped. Think Isaac and Camden must've had something to do with it."

Silence reigns, pondering and slightly upset.

"Noah?" trepidatiously, growing worried.

"Did you see Mischief's nails?" Noah asks. Laughs, bittersweet, "His dog? His _face?"_

Peter's blood rushes woozy.

Isaac's angel, he recalls. And: _He looked so much like my wife._

Claudia's jeep, when she was alive: Roscoe; and that colossal beast of Mischief's, who reminded Peter of a robin's egg blue jeep every time he saw it: also, Roscoe.

Those Siren-gifted night terrors penetrate his soul again, and his head _whirls._ His dreams had merged them, hadn't they? Mischief, Stiles. Both, neither.

"Peter," Noah says, choked, "that was my son, wasn't it?"

_Yes._

The answer rings so clearly in him that he needn't even say it out loud, needn't even be seen undergoing the revelation; their packbond _aches_ with it.

  


Hours later finds them in the Stilinskis' living room. Isaac, Camden, and Stiles are all at school. Noah is on the couch with his head in his hands. Peter's leaning against the opposite wall, arms folded across his chest, listening as Noah unravels every conceivable reason one's time-travelling son might not tell them that they _are_ their time-travelling son.

Eventually, he hits rock bottom: "Do you think it's because I was a terrible father?"

 _"Noah,"_ Peter says, almost scolding. Almost scandalized.

Noah looks up at him helplessly, expression aged with some strange, inexplicable loss, "Without you, I might've been," he reminds, "without Camden and Isaac, without — _Pack."_ He chuckles, all mirthless static-crackle, "If you weren't here right now, Peter, I'd be drinking."

"I know," Peter murmurs, soft and unhappy. It pains him to see Noah hurting. So _much_ about this pains him.

Their interview, before it'd reached this point of self-recriminations and unanswerable questions, had consisted of distress and heartbreak over the inevitable realizations that come with how obvious it is that Mischief is suffering. There's no way to know what all plagues him, but that he is _plagued_ is clear.

If Peter's nightmares had _any_ truth to them...

They're still somewhat hazy and confusing, in the way of dreams, but even so. He can't bring himself to confess their contents out loud. They sit at the bottom of his throat, tremulous and shaking.

Peter tips his head back against the wall, closes his eyes, and breathes. A restful moment. An acquiring of calm. "I cannot account for a man I do not _know,"_ he says into the dusty sunlight, into all this tragic agitation. "I know only _you,_ Noah. This version of you. And you're probably the best example of a father I have. Granted, the bar isn't very high; my own father abandoned me."

Noah huffs a begrudging laugh at that, however mist-laden it may be, and Peter tilts a smile at him.

"Besides," Peter says briskly, moving to sit beside his friend, knocking their knees and shoulders together, "we have to take everything into consideration: he didn't tell you, yes, but he didn't tell anyone else, either, did he? And as for his reasons, well." Peter inhales sharply, forces himself to exhale, slow. "Perhaps he's simply trying to protect us," he suggests, hushed. "After all, what kind of future do you think he lived to be the way he is now? What kind of future," Peter says, "that he would come back, and do all that he has done, just to see it changed?"

A terrible one, they both think together, in the ensuing silence.

It must have been a _terrible_ one.

* * *

* * *

Deucalion doesn't waste any time, after returning home, to initiate discussions.

He gathers his Pack to him, he awakens Marco, and he asks his Left Hand to repeat what he'd said at the Hales' here, openly, before all of his packmates. Not out of spite or any intent to humiliate, but because he needs to know the others' thoughts, and he needs to know why Marco never told anyone — did he feel uncomfortable asserting his doubts and fears? Or was it something else?

Marco glares, lips peeling back over wolven fangs as he spills forth all his venom in an infuriated, contemptuous rush.

The atmosphere tightens with tense silence. Nobody willing to agree with the _way_ Marco spoke, nor with his subtle yearning for Deucalion's position in the hierarchy; nobody willing to disagree with the general theme of his underlying statements.

Yes, there is peace between the Argent Clan and the Hale region, but that's only one small speck of the world in the green, and it's still fresh, delicate.

How many other Hunter Clans and families exist, so much more brutally and fanatically than the Argents do? How many supernatural creatures exist who _do_ kill for killings' sake, or eatings' sake? and how far would the Hunters go to convince civilians that werewolves are just like them? How could they fight that, the publicity of millions and governments armed with weapons of war, when they're already losing the fight against the Hunters almost everywhere else?

And that's the crux of the matter, the thing everyone else seems to agree on that had bypassed Deucalion's understanding entirely: peace requires fighting. It demands an honest, terrifying, gruelling battle. It demands _time._

Deucalion begs of his people, "If you felt this way, if _all of you_ felt this way, why did none of you tell me?"

"You wouldn't listen," they say, "you were so earnest and eager and _stubborn."_

"We love you," they tell him, "and sometimes you were just convincing _enough_ that we could almost believe your vision was true. We _wanted_ to believe it was true, like a child wants to believe daylight is safe."

"I'm listening now," he promises, almost defeated, almost timid.

"Good," they say. "Thank you." And: "It's better that you know, that you see."

So he holds conference with his Pack well into the next week. He sups on the wisdom of his Betas and he realizes how much he was missing, holding on so fervently to that vision of his, binding himself so firmly to it that he couldn't face or suffer change.

Without Gerard, Mischief, _Marco_ — perhaps he never _would_ have changed.

Marco is still afflicted, displeased and betrayed. It does not take them long to discover that his silence was held in malice. He'd been waiting for Deucalion to make a mistake, to fall beneath his own arrogance and hubris, to get injured or die. To give Marco his blood-red eyes.

Vangelina, a werecat who is forever teasing Deucalion for allowing her to live in a den of wolves, hisses: "You say you love him like a _brother."_

"I do," Marco tells her, ruthless. "A brother I want to _kill."_

She leaps at him with an enraged yowl, delivers no less than eight blows before Deucalion can stop her.

"Marco," he says, wishing it could be any other way, hoping that he is making the right choice, and praying, always praying; "Leave. You are not my Beta. I am not your Alpha. Our packbond is severed—" it shatters, winds him for a moment, fills his next words with weeping: "You do not belong here, anymore. Leave my territory, Omega."

Marco stares, motionless, _afraid._

"I am sorry," Deucalion says. "I wish I could've done better for you, I wish I had listened sooner, I wish that this, that me... changing, learning, listening _now_ — I wish it were enough. But as it's not—"

"No. It's not," Marco agrees in a furious, mocking tone, "it never fucking could be. You think you can take my Pack away from me just like that, huh? Just name me Omega and that's it?"

"Marco—"

"No!" Marco roars, "No way, fuck you. I'd be a better Alpha than you _ever_ could be!"

Deucalion is stunned. He cannot understand how this much rage in one of his closest so completely eluded him. But, then, it seems that reality as a whole has been eluding him until now. How could he have been so blind?

"I challenge you to a duel," Marco says, grinning meanly.

"Marco," Deucalion whispers, rough, "don't do this."

Marco leans in close, dripping hostility, "Do. You. Accept. Alpha?"

Deucalion sighs. "Yes."

Marco dies that night, an Omega, a fool, an unmarked grave outside of Kokkinos packlands.

And Deucalion grows wiser, a dewy prayer on his tongue that he may remain a good man.

* * *

* * *

"Daddy," Allison says, eyelids drooping. She's tired, they both are. "Why isn't Mommy with us?"

Chris falters. Heaves a great sigh. He sits on the motel bed beside her and considers, for a moment, how to answer that. He'd been so adamant that Allison grow up outside of the life, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep things hidden from her. She's so brightly curious and clever.

When Gerard had died, it hadn't affected her too badly: Gerard hadn't wanted anything to do with her after he'd learned that she wasn't going to be Hunter-raised, and Chris has always had a _difficult_ relationship with his father. Allison hadn't known him that well. To her, it had been as if some stranger had faded into obscurity.

Kate had been... harder. More public. Arrested and locked away for doing awful, _awful_ things. Multiple mass-murder arson cases closed with the clanking lock of her prison cell.

Allison had loved Kate. She had grieved, as any child would grieve.

Victoria isn't facing arrest or death, but Allison is never, _ever_ going to see her again.

After the Council had issued this practical restraining order, after they had stripped Victoria of all her power and sent her most loyal Hunters off to be retrained, they'd given Chris and the rest of the Argent Clan stationed in Beacon Hills to Maddy by way of Rohese. Chris is meant to become his cousin's soldier, her Right Hand. They want him to help her into her new role: Beacon Hills' Argent Matriarch.

After all, he is the most familiar with the local supernatural population, the Hale region, and, apparently, the Hale region's mysterious benefactor — Mischief. They tried to issue this job to Rohese, at first, but Rohese had refused, citing all of the above and reminding them of her place in Brazil, which is undergoing its own efforts toward peace.

Chris had accepted the Council's decree. He would maintain the treaties, he would work under Maddy.

Maddy. Who is married to a Banshee.

How is he supposed to hide that from Allison?

And — why should he?

There is going to be a new Code in Beacon Hills from now on. One that makes so much more _sense,_ he almost can't comprehend why it hadn't been their Code from the beginning.

_We protect those who cannot protect themselves._

It's no longer bloody, monstrous, harrowing.

It's no longer something he feels the _need_ to hide from her.

It is something that he thinks he can find it within himself to be _proud_ of.

And maybe — maybe, someday, Allison could be proud of it, too.

Maybe someday she could _carry_ it.

Even as young as she is, she is a direct descendant, a true heir. The rightful Matriarch inherit, whenever Maddy wants to step down.

"Mommy isn't with us because she," Chris' voice cracks, throat spasms a swallow. "She was being very, very mean to the werewolves back home. She wanted us to keep fighting them, even though they didn't want to fight at all. They just wanted to — live. To be left alone."

Allison is squinting up at him like she's wondering if he hit his head while she wasn't looking. "Daddy," she says, very, very slowly, as if he were the child here instead of her, "werewolves aren't _real."_

Chris huffs a small, exhausted smile, "Oh, honey," he says, wrapping an arm around her tiny shoulders. "Yes, they are. I need — there are some things I need to tell you. A lot of things. But, for now, let's start with _la bête du gévaudan..."_

(Tonight, it is almost like telling her a bedtime story.

Tomorrow, it will be more like a fight, because what it boils down to is that her mother is _gone._ Forever.

Years from now, it will be: "Thank you, Dad. Thank you for telling me, for always being so honest with me after Mom. Thank you for letting me fight for them, my friends. My family." And, smiling so wide that it'll hurt, the good kind of hurt, "My _Pack.")_

* * *

* * *

Stiles — Mischief. Stiles — Mischief. Stiles — Mischief.

His identity is like a coin spinning its side.

He is starting, _just_ starting, to feel more like one than the other. Stiles, surrounded by death and hopelessness. Mischief, surrounded by work and Pack.

In truth, he is both. He will _always_ be both.

But Mischief...

Mischief isn't a mask anymore, it isn't a beloved/agonizing childhood memory to hide behind. It can't be — not when his sisters call him by it, not when Elodie and Nunna and Kali's Howlers call him by it, not when his other beloved ones _know_ him by it.

Mischief is his _name._

It's who he _is._

And — that's okay.

"Mischief?" Julia wonders quietly. She's driving while Kali and Ennis bicker in the back over _Tetris,_ the weirdos, and Stiles... _Mischief,_ sits in the passenger's seat, watching the road unfurl ahead of them, hemmed in by scrolling scenery.

He hums a vague inquiry at her.

"You okay?"

"... Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I think maybe I am."

* * *

* * *

"Not your favourite anymore, am I?" Ennis asks Kali after she's backseat-bitched through three fucking rounds of Tetris.

She blinks at him, bewildered, "What?"

"Your favourite," he says, rolling his eyes toward the dumb-ass kid in the passenger's seat, "'s him, now, huh?"

She flounders, surprised and unable to properly deny it.

He snorts, "Don't worry about it, princesa. As long as I'm still your favourite _big_ brother, he can be your favourite little one." He knocks her leg with a foot and starts a new round, "You try to replace me with that culo Peter, though? _Then_ we're gonna have words. Ugly, ugly words."

"In what universe," she starts, utterly indignant, "would I replace _you_ with _Peter?"_

"In the one where you two are basically whatever the political version of two housewives who smoke and bitch at each other is," Ennis tells her bluntly.

"We are — that is _not_ how we are."

"Uh-huh."

"He's a fucking asshole."

"Yeah," Ennis agrees. "And so am I. You have a type."

"You— I do _not."_

"Whatever you say, princesa."

"Oh, _Moon above,_ fuck you."

  


The sky is a wide open cornflower thing when Ennis and his people depart from Kali and hers to return home. Ennis on his Harley, finding a formation with his closest to dance over the sleek, endless roads.

Kali's caravan, parked in the middle of an empty highway; and Kali, climbing onto the roof of the vehicle, standing proud and tall, cupping her hands around her mouth to shout: "You're still my favourite, idiot! Listen to my heartbeat fucker!"

A grin eclipses his face, dazzlingly thrilled.

"And don't crash!"

"I love you, too, princesa!" he cries into the shrieking wind, revving his bike up into a flawless wheelie.

"Ah, fuck off," he just barely hears her mutter fondly, a fair distance away, now. Sees his Abuelita, shaking her head at them both from the back of one of their vans.

Ennis speeds ahead to take point, the hum of a powerful engine beneath him, the pulse of a packbond that most wouldn't consider possible flickering wine-red behind his breastbone, and his territory blooming wild on the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a) i can't believe it took me over 80k to get the canon Alpha Pack just about exactly where I want them, hhhhhhhhhhh, _throws flowerpetals and falls over_ 🌺🌺🌺
> 
> b) when you realize the acronym for your fic is TV TOMB.... lol
> 
> &&soulhugs~~
> 
> [up next: The Interlude, aka, Nikolaj & Mischief's strange adventure]


	38. Interlude (End of Act IV)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, i'm a day late and a bit of a dollar short, i'm so very very sorry, please accept this new chapter (even though i'm not quite sure i like how it turned out), and know that i love all of you so very much, your comments and support constantly give me motivation and warm fuzzies and i'm so glad that i have this and all of you because if i didn't i don't know where i'd be
> 
> *deep breath*
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** A Not-So-Graphic Depiction of Death
> 
> ok, * ahem*, sorry, love you lot, enjoy, xoxoxoxo

As the caravans roll up to the Giliberto compound's Gate, Kali's howlers commence with their usual welcoming uproar. The vargr camp scatters away from the sound, retreats until they're all but out of sight.

Alongside the uneven road, two bodies are laid out to bloat and decay under the sun. The head of one of these bodies is sitting upright like a golem, separated completely from the rest of itself. Their faces are painted animalistic and gruesome, and their bodies are wrapped in thin, oil-anointed canvas.

They are unrecognizable.

Mischief's eyes drag across the windshield, the windows, inescapably arrested. "What happened?"

"It's an offering," Julia says with soft, sympathetic grimness. "The vargr are animals in the eyes of our Pack, the land, their Gods. If they're killed—. For their meat, it's like any other animal being killed, for their souls?... They can't go the way of animal souls, it's not their right. They are called by nothing, they belong to nothing. They're lost to the earth unless the true animals take them. Or unless we do."

Kali, driving their caravan, does not stop. Does not look. Keeps her silence.

Mischief wonders if she still feels the heated anguish of betrayal, wonders, vaguely, if she will ever forgive the vargr for causing it.

"Who are they?" he asks, hushed.

"I don't know," Julia whispers.

And slowly, steadily, they pass the corpses by.

The Gate opens.

And, on ululating wolven cries, they're delivered home.

* * *

Nikolaj halts his bicycle in front of some sand-dusted nowhere motel outside of Buttonwillow just in time to see a large man hastily limping out the front door. Half of him's covered in soot, his hair is cartoonishly frizzed, his left pantleg is ripped clear off, and various parts of him are covered in blood. An incredibly short, incredibly thin woman is trailing after him trying desperately to soothe his agitation, but he only shakes his head, unwilling to listen.

"Don't patronize this place, sir," the man advises in an urgent, trembling voice as he rushes past, "it's cursed! Don't go in there, don't go in there, sir. I, myself, am never coming back again!" this last part is shouted at the little lady. "Lord almighty!"

"D-don't listen to him," she hastens to tell Nikolaj breathlessly. "He's mistaken, we're not cursed. He just, um, he just ran into a string of bad luck. Yes. That's all."

Nikolaj turns to watch the man go, still shaking his head and muttering emphatically. The back of his unbuttoned shirt flows like a cape behind him, covered in lipstick drawings of phalluses and flowers, its hem dangerously singed. "Never seen a string of bad luck make anybody look like _that."_

The lady makes a floundering noise, gestures incomprehensibly, and then concedes with a sigh: "Well. The rooms are cheap?"

Nikolaj dismounts his bike and nods, "Sold."

Her whole face lights up, "Oh, really? Are you sure? Wonderful!"

* * *

Thomas is the one to tell them that it's Old Ren and Erik out there, dead; he's the one to tell them about their only suspect, about how he left.

Kali, full of surprise and an indefinable sadness: "Nikolaj's gone?"

"Yeah," Thomas says. "Don't think he ever intended on stayin', to be honest. Don't think he intended on hidin' his killin' them, either."

"Do you think," Kali asks, half lost, "that he left because he thought I'd...?"

Thomas ticks his tongue, sighs, runs a scenting hand over her cheek. "I don't know, Alpha," he says. "I do not know."

Kali inhales sharply, shakes herself, and moves on to do the work that's required of her: informing her Pack of their happy return, and all the good news that comes with it; organizing a group to lay out the new trade-routes she'd negotiated; getting her people relaxed and celebratory, unwound from the tensity of political distractions and better equipped for Lusagaria.

She sits slouched in her banquet hall after it's done, in her accomplishments and her losses and all her overwhelming tired. Mischief comes to her, two mugs of steaming green tea in hand. He sets one down on the low table in front of her. She sighs a weary smile at him, "Thanks."

"Long day?" he asks, settling himself on the cushion across from hers.

She laughs, small and heavy, and takes a relishing sip of her tea. _"So many_ long days, Mischief."

"I know," he says softly, "I know. You're doin' well, though."

"Am I?" she wonders, contemplative. His eyes are full of stars. They're in the midnight depths of his pupils, they're shining like exploding suns from his irises, enduring, endless. She leans an elbow on the table, rests the point of her chin in her palm, and says, "You're leaving again, aren't you?"

Mischief looks into the depths of his cup, "Yeah."

"Where?" A corner of her mouth quirks up, "Can I ask that? Will you tell me?"

He pulls his gas mask to his chin, takes a flash-quick drink, and replaces it with a heavy breath. "Nikolaj."

Confusion mars her head, her heart, the skin between her brows, _"Nikolaj?_ Why?"

"Because he's my friend, my spy. And... I can still feel his packbond. Can't you?"

"Yeah," she breathes. She would have known if it broke, she would have felt the shattering erupt throughout her soul. "Yeah, I can."

Kali extends a hand toward him, palm up, offering without demand. Mischief takes it, laces their fingers together. Her hall succumbs to the scent of libraries in lavender fields, and although there is a sea swallowing up the horizon, Mischief's libraries remain so beautifully dry. Pages of ink-adorned knowledge, waiting for a fellow traveller to peruse them, or waiting for a fountain pen to reveal the secrets and stories of lifetimes upon their expectant blankness.

"What are you going to do?" Kali asks.

"Thank him," Mischief tells her, "make sure he knows that he can come back, that he never had to leave."

Kali huffs a smile. "Kick his ass for me, too, okay?"

Mischief chuckles, all low, meaning-drenched wistfulness. A breath later, he's gone. Vanished. Her hand dusted in his lingering warmth, the air quivering with breeze-kissed parchment.

"Gods," she sighs, "doesn't anyone know how to give a proper goodbye?"

* * *

Nikolaj is hauling his laundry from his gaping duffel to the mouth of the motel washing machine when a heartbeat thumps into existence behind him, along with fluid-moving lungs, and an entire living body. Against his own volition, Nikolaj jumps. Flinches a turn. Stares at the one who startled him.

"Mischief?"

The curve of Mischief's eyes read insufferable grin, "Sorry, man, didn't mean to scare you. But, honestly? it's kind of nice to be on the other side of that equation for once. I swear sneaking up on poor, sweet, fragile humans is like a sport for you guys or something."

Nikolaj, decisively, returns to what he was doing; says, "You are neither poor nor fragile, Mischief."

Mischief lifts himself up onto the edge of the dryer and perches there as Nikolaj finishes loading the washer. "Maybe."

Nikolaj pays the machine its quarters and bangs its door shut, gives his full attention to his new guest. "What are you doing here?"

Mischief shrugs, "Checking on you. Wanted to thank you for what you did with the vargr. That was — nice of you."

Nikolaj's face remains mute, his voice a steady deadpan, "Killing my family is nice?"

"Oh, yeah. Best present I've gotten in ages."

Nikolaj does not think that even the Gods could understand this boy. Perhaps he is something beyond a God. Perhaps he is a reincarnated ant. "Glad I could be of service, then."

Mischief tips his head to his shoulder, eyes searching, "You didn't have to leave, you know."

"I know," Nikolaj says. "I wanted to."

"Clean break?"

"Something like that."

"You're still bonded to me. And Kali."

Nikolaj folds his arms over his chest, "That was... accidental."

Even if he no longer holds his half-sister as Alpha, she still retains _such_ a grip on his soul. The girl he had once, when he was too young not to be a fool, envied; the girl he had grown to respect; the woman he had learned to admire. And Mischief, kind and humble Mischief, who is far too intriguing and worrying to let go, who saved him, once, without even trying.

Nikolaj slowly smothered every other packbond within him until they were nothing but fog and distance, only a matter of hours before they became ghosts: sheer, scattered, and then gone.

Mischief swivels on his seat and lays himself out across the two janky machines, one rumbling like a beast full of electric movement and water, the other as silently waiting as any hollow-boned reaper. "Even if you weren't Pack I would've come," he says on an exhale, eyelids fluttering shut.

"Why?"

The skin above Mischief's mask crinkles tellingly, but he doesn't reply, only stays close and rests.

Nikolaj considers him a long moment. An ant or an alien, he thinks, and resolves to accept that this is happening, to continue on as if he'd meant to have Mischief riding passenger all along. Asks: "Does teleportation come with its own form of jetlag?"

 _"Hells_ yes."

Huh.

"Poor you."

"Oh, fuck off."

"Why should I? You're the stowaway, here."

"Fuck off harder."

"And you're on my clothes."

"Am not. Now, hush. Mummy's napping."

"Gods, you're a handful. How does anyone put up with you?"

Mischief blows him a kiss through the gas mask without moving an inch. Nikolaj exhales very deeply.

This is going to be a disaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the biggest freaking soulhugs, folks, the biggest
> 
> and please, if you are binge-reading this in the future, all the interlude chapters are named that for a reason, they're the pit-stops, so here's your gentle reminder to take care of yourself: eat some water, drink some food, give your pets or stuffies or friends or whatever a (soul)hug, go potty, breathe deeply, wash your hands, wear a mask, all the things, seriously for real
> 
> i love you i love you i love you 💌🌺🌺🌺


	39. Cinderella-ish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _aka Mischief and Nikolaj being siblings for 60mins straight_
> 
> **Trigger Warnings :** Grief, Brief Mention of ~a weird variation of~ Suicidal Ideation

Mischief dozes on the machines until Nikolaj is done with them, then follows him, drowsy, out of the motel laundry room. Stumbles to a stop four steps away from the stairs and begins tugging on the back of Nikolaj's suit jacket.

"This jacket costs more than every single one of your limbs, could you please—" Nikolaj checks his very justified rant on account of the trembling, beet-faced woman standing in the doorway nearby, all done up in honey and crow feathers. He has to hand it to her, she's suppressing her emotions incredibly well. "Ah."

 _"Ah?"_ Mischief intones, tugging again on Nikolaj's suit jacket. Nikolaj is inclined to growl. He settles for a warning look instead. "What do you mean, _ah?_ Do you know something that I don't? What's wrong with her?"

Nikolaj rolls his eyes forward and moves out of designer-jacket-tugging range, ignoring the woman as she finally caves under her tears.

"Nikolaj," Mischief says. "Nikolaj. Nikolaj. Koljek. _Nikki."_

Nikolaj rounds on him, a raw nerve stung by a swarm of wasps, "Do _not._ Call me that."

Mischief is held very still; breathless, careful. "Okay," he says, steeped in enormous and terrible kindness. "Okay, I'm sorry."

There is an ire-warm silence, both unheeded and uninterrupted by the weeping woman. Nikolaj steps back. Mischief slouches ever so slightly.

"Just— please," Mischief says, "if there's something going on here that I need to know, tell me?"

Nikolaj weighs him, his sincerity or his mettle, cheeks still aflutter with all that indignant fury. "This motel is cursed," he says. "Apparently."

 _"Cursed,"_ Mischief repeats, high-throated and scandalized. "Wh-why are we in a cursed motel? I've been in cursed motels, Nikolaj! It never ends well!"

Nikolaj shrugs indifferently. The bed was cheap.

Mischief's gaze stretches out into the middle-distance, farther than any unreachable horizon. "Which..." he mutters, "is a thing I should probably deal with." He snaps back to the present so quickly it's almost audible, "Later."

Nikolaj watches in wonder as Mischief approaches the woman at a march, greets her, and gains her confidence with all the easy grace of a bee charmer bewitching a bee. He should just go up to his room. His duffel is heavy, his muscles are tired, and this is absolutely none of his business.

Mischief beckons him over.

Dull, watery sunlight casts everything in dusky greys and blues, makes it all softer, less serrated, easier to float in. The fabric of the air is perfumed with wild lavender and antiquated books. Mischief's expression describes trust and faith and vivid determination, while their packbond whispers a shallow song that's an odd tip-of-the-tongue familiar.

Nikolaj goes to him.

"Andrea, this is Nikolaj. Nikolaj, Andrea. We're your friendly neighbourhood... neighbours. So, um. Think you can tell us what's wrong?"

Andrea Dean, as it turns out, is in the Johnson & Johnson Ball's Opening Committee. Her whole day, she tells them, has been filled with odd happenings. A beehive appeared in her room overnight, and when she tried to take care of it, it quite literally exploded on her and all of her things, ruining the dress she was meant to wear to the ball; and when she went to leave her room, a murder of crows flew in, attacking her and each other in a whirlwind.

"It's over, now," Mischief soothes. "You're safe."

"I know that," Andrea says through her sobs, "but what am I supposed to tell the motel owner? Wha-what am I supposed to do about this dress?" She lifts up her soiled skirts, shakes them, then throws them down again in a huff. "I need to be at the community centre in an hour!"

Mischief looks to Nikolaj, "I, uh, I think my friend here may be able to help with that."

Nikolaj stares at Mischief incredulously. Yes, he was head of the Giliberto Pack's tailors, but what is he expecting him to do? Pull an entire ball-gown out of thin air in the span of an hour?

As if reading his mind, Mischief crinkles his eyes and sings, "I'm sure you'll think of something!"

Andrea looks at him as if he is fully equipped with either her salvation — or her destruction.

Nikolaj restrains a sigh, clasps his hands behind his back, says: "Yes, I will."

Andrea's smile is one of those extremely photogenic ones that stick with you forever: sweet-dimpled cheeks (drenched in make-up smudged rain), perfect teeth, wrinkled button nose, and gooey-glad eyes (a little red, but nevermind). She's full-bodied voluptuous, which will make _shopping_ for a dress nigh on impossible (one of the stranger things about civilians is that they don't seem to know how to make clothes for bigger women that both fit well _and_ look good). He can imagine a gown for her, but he can make _nothing_ respectable in an hour.

"Is your shower contaminated by the honey?" he asks, mind ticking away.

Mischief's eyes go soft and proud. Nikolaj does his best to ignore him, his very existence thrives on confusion and Nikolaj needs to focus.

"No?" Andrea says hesitantly.

"Would you like to go get cleaned up while I try to take care of your... fashion emergency?"

"I— yes, that's a good idea."

"I'll need your dress," Nikolaj tells her.

Andrea bites her lip, looks from Nikolaj to Mischief and back, takes in Nikolaj's luxury three-piece suit (not bespoke, but nevertheless), sucks in a deep breath, and nods, "Okay. Ye-yeah, okay."

Mischief's eyes go sun-flare. "Cool."

* * *

Inside his rented room, Nikolaj thoroughly cleans his bathroom sink, fills it halfway with lukewarm water, and commences washing the dress in sections with baby shampoo and baking soda. He won't be able to save all of it, which is fine, as long as he can save enough to work with.

There's an amazed exclamation from somewhere within the room. Nikolaj pokes his head out to see. Mischief, with not nearly enough care, is handling his bronze octopus teapot stand.

"Would you— don't _touch_ that."

Mischief shrugs, half-sheepish, half-innocent, "Sorry."

Nikolaj, warily, returns to his work. Is interrupted by, "Hey, what's this?" no less than three minutes later.

Nikolaj sets the dress aside and hurries out to his things. Taking the most recently molested item from Mischief's hands: "It's a toaster," he says, tone flexing gritty. "Stop messing with my things."

Mischief, all a-wonder, still poking at the intricate metal designs: _"This_ is a toaster?"

"It's from the 1920s." Nikolaj puts the toaster on top of the rickety beige dresser, turns to his packmate, and glares.

Mischief raises his hands in surrender. "Sorry."

Nikolaj arches an eyebrow.

"Really. Won't happen again, promise."

If it does happen again, Nikolaj's going to throttle him. He flashes his soul-scarred eyes to get the point across.

Mischief, because he is the exception to every rule, does not flinch or cower or react negatively in any way. He simply says, "I like the new duds."

Nikolaj blinks his eyes back to human. Is that distaste eddying in his belly? Or astonishment?

"What? Blue is a pretty colour."

"Your eyes are gold," Nikolaj returns without even thinking.

"No, they aren't. And I didn't earn them. _Your_ eyes are blue because you removed a threat to the Pack that nobody else could."

Nikolaj exhales harshly, prowls back over to Andrea's dress and begins vigorously scrubbing out the most Gods' ridiculously becursed honey. Mischief follows him, perching on the tank of the toilet, black steel-toed boots thudding a jittery rhythm on the toilet's lid.

Nikolaj hisses at him to hush.

Mischief stops moving/noise-making for about ten seconds altogether. "Can I help?"

_"No."_

"Oh-kay."

Another ten seconds pass. Mischief takes the elastic out of his hair, shaking it out until its an enormous lion's mane, broader than his shoulders and longer than his elbows.

"If you get hair on this dress," Nikolaj warns with forced composure, "I will kill you."

"I won't."

Very flatly: "Right."

Bright and cheerfully: "Right."

"Why are you still here, Mischief?"

"If you think I am going to leave you alone in a cursed motel you're a fucking idiot, Koljek."

"Well," Nikolaj says, level, "you're annoying."

"Aw, really?" Mischief coos, rapid-plaiting his hair back into a utilitarian dutch braid. "Thanks. I think that's the sweetest thing anybody's ever said to me."

"I told you not to get hair on this dress."

"I didn't," Mischief says, defensive.

Nikolaj holds up a long wavy strand of dark brown hair, expression expectant and scolding.

Mischief falters. Snatches the hair away. Clears his throat. "Oops?"

Nikolaj feels _very_ inclined to growl.

Mischief snaps his elastic into place at the end of his braid.

Another ten seconds pass.

"You're gonna burn holes in that silk if you scrub it any harder."

"Shut up," Nikolaj snaps

"Just a passing observation."

"Unhelpful."

"Sorry."

Nikolaj relaxes his movements and addresses Mischief with more aggrieved sardonicism in his throat than he has ever known, "Do you _want_ to die?"

"Nope," Mischief sighs; not happy or sad. Wistful, maybe, tinged with syrupy regret. "I didn't actually figure that out until recently, but, nope. Got work to do. Can't die yet."

Nikolaj's movements decrementally stop. The idea that Mischief might've wanted, or _not_ wanted... it seems almost perverse. "And when you no longer have any work to do?"

Mischief inhales sharply, "It's not just work," he says, staring absently at the deteriorating lime-green wall, "I've got people, too. My Pack. Kali." He stretches a leg out to nudge Nikolaj's side with the hard toes of his boot, gentle, considerate. "You."

Nikolaj hums. Looks down at his soaking hands, at the folds of lily-petal cloth between them. Milky water frothing with suds. Knuckles blooming strawberry red.

There is always blood behind the thickest shadows of his eyelids, now.

"I loved Erik," he says. Something, somewhere, must be leaking, because the droplets falling into the sink are causing ripples. Making it hard to see. "I loved him."

"I know," Mischief says quietly.

Nikolaj's breath wobbles in his throat like wine about to boil over. "It hurts," he doesn't recognize his own voice, so tremulous and keening. He curls a hand toward his chest, five trembling fingertips against his heart. "It _hurts."_

"Yeah," Mischief agrees. Hops off his seat to stand behind Nikolaj. "Chin up."

"Wha-what're you—"

"I'm brushing your hair."

Nikolaj sniffs, lets his head be tilted back as he fights for air. Watches Mischief's reflection through his eyelashes in the mirror. "Is that my hairbrush?"

"Yep."

Nikolaj closes his aching eyes with a feeble sigh. Of course it is.

"I'm never going to stop thanking you, you know."

Nikolaj chuckles, mist-laden and hoarse. "You're a very annoying person."

There is a smile in Mischief's voice when he says, "I'm flattered you think so."

"My hair," Nikolaj says, when the susurrus sweep-sift of the brush has been replaced by a tender tugging and weaving, "is too short to braid."

"Uh-huh. We'll see about that."

Fifteen minutes later sees Nikolaj labouring over his antique Singer with an angel crown of tight french braids and reckless sprung-free curls. His feet on the treadle, his deft hands working the wheel and the cloth, his worst thoughts submerged under the meditative clunky purr.

"How did you even get that in here?" Mischief wonders from where he is on the floor, clumsily crawling around the dress with a blow-dryer.

"I can disassemble it," Nikolaj says.

"And put it _where?"_

"It isn't _that_ hard to transport."

"It's practically a table and you're on a _bicycle,_ dude. A bicycle."

Nikolaj stops sewing, leans back in his seat with a huff. "I get car-sick."

"Oh... Huh."

"We've only got thirty minutes left."

Mischief refocuses the blow-dryer, "Almost done."

"I meant — stop distracting me."

"Sure," Mischief sings.

Nikolaj is beginning to dread that tone of voice. Cheerful, impish, both completely innocent and completely devoid of any truth. How on earth, he wonders, does Kali survive?

* * *

Andrea Dean opens her door to two bickering boys who she thinks must be brothers, even if they don't look too much alike. She takes her gown, which is clean, now, refreshed. The skirt is the type of full that will twirl with her when she spins, the top is grey velvet and black moths with wings that always seem to be in flight.

She has never looked or felt more beautiful than she does when she wears it.

"Thank you," she tells them both, with every ounce of herself.

Mischief says, "Oh, don't thank me. He's the one who did all the hard work."

So Andrea takes Nikolaj's hand in hers, bows her head in deep-felt gratitude, and repeats, _"Thank you._ I could never thank you enough. You've honestly— basically saved my whole life."

He doesn't respond, his face could be made from stone, but as far as she's concerned, he's her fairy godfather, and it's time for her to go to the ball.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mischief: *poke, poke, poke*  
> nikolaj: ... _bitch—_  
>  mischief: *cackling as he runs off into the sunset*  
> nikolaj: *taking deep breaths that aren't calming him down at all*
> 
> sort of wanted a bit of a fun chapter we could all relax to  
> soulhugs!!!


	40. The Motel (Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincere apologies for the two-week hiatus, half of it was my ADHD being mean to me and half of it was writer's block havin' a time. So I gave myself a little mental health break in the hopes, but in the end I don't even know if I like how this chapter turned out, lol; I did try, though.
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Mentions of Death, Motion Sickness-ish

Gale Primrose Mott was made a widow and an orphan at nineteen. Highway pileup, if you can believe it.

Her parents had owned this poor old motel since the late '50s, had inherited it from Grandma Lillian and Grandpa Hugh. She doesn't know what's wrong with it. Grandma Lillian used to say it was infested with fairies, but the popular running theory is that it's cursed. Or haunted. She isn't even surprised when some young man comes in on behalf of Miss Andrea Dean.

"A spontaneous beehive?" she asks faintly.

The young man might be smiling underneath that gas mask of his, what with the way his eyes go half-moon and dancing. "A spontaneous _exploding_ beehive."

Lord, have mercy. "Is she hurt?"

"No. Not a single bee sting. The crows might have scratched her, though."

_"Crows?"_

"A whole murder of 'em."

Gale falls into the squeaky, moth-bitten chair behind the reception desk and puts her head in her hands. She's so in the red it hurts, but, "I-I'll refund the room, I'll— oh, lord—"

"Hey," the young man soothes. "Don't worry about it, I mean," he huffs, "she thought you were going to be upset with _her."_

"Why would I be?" Gale laments, "It's not her fault. It's this _place._ There-there's something wrong with it."

"Yeah," he says, drawing nearer, gaining a keenness that could probably tear through metal as if it were paper. "About that..."

* * *

By the time dawn presses its pale ethereal face to her windows, the young man - Mischief - knows more about Gale's life and her cursed motel than her own priest does. He really is a kind fellow, offered to reimburse Miss Andrea Dean's room on Gale's behalf, and to _"see what he could do,"_ whatever that means.

It was a good long talk and Gale had herself a good long cry and now she is going to have herself a good long sleep.

She is too young to feel this gosh darn old. It's only been three years since her parents and her husband died.

Feels like it's been ninety.

* * *

Directly after this conversation, between the motel's office and room 113, a call is placed:

"Peter."

"Mischief?"

"Hi."

A chuckle, low and soft and warm, "Hello. Did Kali give you my number?"

 _No,_ Mischief does not say, _I have it memorized._ "Yeah, yes, she absolutely did. So, hey, just— hypothetically speaking, what would cause a building to, uhm, manifest insects and birds, disappear things at random, and occasionally decorate people forward-slash clothes forward-slash mirrors and windows with penises?"

"... hypothetically speaking?"

"Ish? Yeah? No. I mean, mostly?"

"Mischief," there is an intense note of worry in Peter's voice that makes Mischief's legs tense, whether to run or to brace for the inevitable fall he does not know, "where are you?"

Instinct commits him to say: "I'm fine."

Peter's reply is drawled, the anxiety in it well hidden, "My confidence is less than inspired, but... all right. I don't know of any one creature that could do all that, unless you have a very reckless magic wielder on your hands—"

"I would've known. If that was it."

A quiet sigh, "Then it is either two different kinds of beings working together, or a new kind of being entirely."

"... Peter?"

"Yes, darling?"

 _Darling_ vibrates in his ears, dances its way down his windpipe, and melts, thick and hot, against the fluid beating of his burning heart. Mischief clears his throat. "You're probably one of the best Left Hands alive," he begins, his breath catching on his syrup-sticky tongue and fluttering there like a damselfly.

Peter doesn't wait very long to ask, "Am I?" in a searching sort of purr.

In another world, another time, _another life,_ he would've said, "Obviously," or, "You've only noticed just now? I thought you were smarter than that, Stiles."

Sometimes the differences hit him like missing a step on the stairs and tripping into angel down. (Sometimes, they hit him like a bolt of lightning, or the bone-crushing wheels of an oncoming train. But this is not one of those times.)

"Yes," Mischief says quietly, with a soul-deep conviction that cannot be disguised or taken back. "You are."

The quality of Peter's ensuing silence is maybe breathless, mostly indecipherable.

"Which means you probably have a bestiary, right?" Mischief hastens to ask, trying to keep his voice on solid ground, trying to keep every ounce of feeling flowing through his veins at bay.

A smirking huff, "I'm guessing you'd like to borrow it?"

"Maybe?"

"Give me your email. I'll send you a copy."

Mischief gives Peter his email, and as much of his gratitude as he can without sounding like any more of a fool.

"Mischief," Peter says at the last. "Please. Be careful."

"I'll- I'll do my best, okay? I'll do my best."

"... Thank you."

* * *

Mischief crashes back into Nikolaj's motel room with a lack of grace that Nikolaj finds oddly disturbing.

His memory has all the fortitude of pine trees midwinter, not much beyond human selfishness can cut it down or deceive it. Yet there is this impermanence surrounding Mischief, a fragility and clumsiness that only seems to exist when he is present in life and out of mind. Nikolaj can't help but wonder, why did he think Mischief so controlled and elegant? Why did he think him so inhumanly heroic? Why did he think him anything but a bumbling boy in a gas mask?

An odd trick of the mind. Must be.

Mischief, out of breath for some reason, tells him, "Get up. We're going to the library."

Nikolaj stares. _Why?_

"I need to do some research," Mischief answers, without needing the question to be spoken aloud. "And I don't want to leave you here alone."

"I was alone ten seconds ago," Nikolaj informs him. "I've been alone for four hours."

"That was different. If you had shouted, I would've heard you." Mischief snatches the book away from Nikolaj's hands and hauls the comforter off of him.

Nikolaj makes an ill-stifled noise of pure indignation.

"James Ellroy?" Mischief wonders, inspecting the weathered paperback's cover. "My mom, she loved this guy. I could never get into him, but, uh." Mischief shakes the book with a bittersweet tinge to his eyes, "He's why my dog's named Roscoe." A quick clearing of the throat before the book is gently smacked against Nikolaj's leg, "Come on. Let's go."

"You can feel me," Nikolaj says by way of protest. He isn't thinking about the way the room smells like dozens of books left naked under a cracked open sky, drenched and weeping, their sodden pages turning softly in the wind. He isn't thinking about how that is the most personal thing Mischief has ever said to him (and, yet, somehow, not the deepest, nor the most profound). He isn't _letting_ himself think about it.

Mischief's eyebrows raise to furrow, somewhere between confused and entertained. "Okay, firstly," he says, "that didn't sound right—"

"The _packbond,"_ Nikolaj says. "I meant—"

"And secondly, no. You and your bicycle are my ride, man."

"You can _teleport."_

Mischief smacks him with the book again, "It doesn't work like that."

"Then how—"

"It's finicky. Don't worry about it. Stop complaining and get up; we've got work to do."

Can't they just _let_ the motel be cursed? Nikolaj is tired, and this continues to feel like none of his business.

"Koljek," Mischief says, all quiet, indistinct power, that almost-but-not-quite familiar lullaby whispering through their packbond once more. "Come on."

* * *

Peddling to the closest public library at five o'clock in the morning on two hours of sleep and one paltry cup of coffee is, perhaps, the least delightful thing in the universe to do.

"You're so _grumpy,"_ Mischief says. He's standing on the rear wheel's footpegs, hands over Nikolaj's shoulders. His fingers keep flexing as if he wants to let go, as if he has to remind himself not to. "Are you sure you're a Giliberto, not a Hale?"

Nikolaj releases a short growl, which will have to be answer enough.

"Alright, alright, sorry." His tone of voice is more laughing than apologetic. Nikolaj refrains from growling again. "How's your motion sickness?"

"Fine," Nikolaj grits out.

"Are you sure? Just— this is a really bumpy road and you're lookin' a little green—"

"Shut. Up."

Mischief makes a soft, amused sound. "Okie-dokie. Don't puke on me, though. If you're going to puke, I mean. Keep your eyes on the horizon, that's what Coach always said, just keep your eyes on the horizon and don't think—"

_"Mischief."_

"Yeah. Yup. Shutting up now."

* * *

When they get there, Mischief is systematic: he asks the librarian where everything on history and mythology can be found, if there's a computer area, and if they have wifi. He scouts through the shelves with something pure and raw vibrating just below his skin. A warped thrill of _keep-going_ that seems urgent even though there's absolutely no reason to be urgent right now.

His scent is a haunting iteration of the library's: wind singing through wild lavender, ghosts turning ancient pages, condensed fog swirling lethargically around antiquated bookshelves. And a lullaby from the past that Nikolaj can _almost_ remember.

Nikolaj makes himself useful, since he's there anyway, and carries half of the volumes Mischief decides are important enough to collect. They find a computer to camp out by, surrounding it with pillars of books as they settle in for the long-haul.

Mischief, five books already fanned out before him, pulls up his email.

A peculiar attachment is clicked open. Nikolaj's brow furrows.

"What is that?" he asks.

"A bestiary," Mischief says.

Nikolaj opens his mouth, another inquiry on the tip of his tongue.

"If you say 'I think you mean bestiality,'" Mischief warns, holding up a finger, "I _will_ slap you."

Nikolaj ignores this minor insult to his intelligence - who on earth mistakes bestiary for bestiality? - and says, "I was _going_ to ask who sent it to you."

"Oh." Mischief glances at him, then away. A too-quick indecipherable thing. "Peter. Peter Hale."

"You know the Hales' Left Hand?"

"Yep."

Which shouldn't even come as a surprise. Mischief seems to know everyone; Nikolaj himself has experienced first hand how effortlessly Mischief can convince a person to bear their soul to him.

Several decimated books, pencils, websites, and legal pads later, Nikolaj lets his head fall back against his chair with a tired sigh: "Any chance it's just— fairies?"

"Nope. Real-life fairies are _nothing_ like Hollywood fairies, man. They're hyper-beautiful, weirdly political douchebags who would sooner steal your first-born child than do shit like this. Besides, they tend to stay on their side of the veil."

"Exactly how many interactions have you had with these 'real-life fairies'?"

Mischief pauses, considering. Makes a face. "Enough not to want a repeat experience?"

Nikolaj allows himself several deep breaths. "And it can't be an actual curse because...?"

"Honestly? Because it's too random. Unless a Caster is actively involved, holding the reigns, the curse needs to be attached to someone or something specific, and the only possibilities here are the motel owner or the motel itself. Can't be the motel owner because this all started before she was even born and she and her family are pretty much fine as long as they're not _inside_ the motel; and it can't be the motel because if it _was,_ the motel would've been destroyed by now. I mean, curses generally aren't this..." Mischief rolls a hand in the air, eyes squinting a grimace, "cute."

 _"Cute?"_ Nikolaj repeats incredulously.

"Well," Mischief says, "no one's died."

All right. That's certainly a... bar.

"I need another coffee," Nikolaj decides, setting his ninety-pound tome aside to stand.

Mischief looks up at him hopefully.

"No," Nikolaj says, with every intention of doubling his order. Mischief simply grins, like he can read his mind, or else like he genuinely _doesn't_ mind.

* * *

It is a long day. Arduous.

The empty coffee cups almost rival the towers of books and fly-away papers they've accumulated by the time the librarian gets to them. "We're closing in fifteen minutes," she whispers, looking fairly pained at the mess they've made. "I'm trusting you'll clean this area up before you go?"

"Yeah, totally," Mischief says, the drag of distraction in his tone. "Just give us... one more..." He trails off. Seems to forget they're there.

The librarian is justifiably concerned.

"Don't worry," Nikolaj tells her on a sigh. "I've got it."

She nods, leaves them. Nikolaj begins clearing the clutter.

Five minutes later Mischief is hissing his name, insistent.

"What, what is it?"

There's a picture on the computer screen that looks, quite frankly, _upsetting._

Mischief's chair creaks as he leans back. "I think I found what we're looking for."

"Don't tell me..."

"Yup."

_"That?"_

"Yeah."

"Gods. Fuck. How do we even—?"

Mischief's face is grim. "We need a Banshee."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love you guys!!!! Super soulhugs~!!!!


	41. The Motel (Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, to everyone who showed such support and kindness in the face of my small mental health break, thank you _so much_. You all mean the world to me, and your words helped me more than you can ever know. xoxoxo
> 
> Also, I really hope this chapter turned out okay 🤞
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Canon-Typical Violence, and I think that's it?

Mischief puts his phone to his ear as they exit the library. "Lorraine!" he says, immediately after the other line picks up. "I've actually been meaning to check up on you for a while."

Nikolaj listens to their conversation with half an ear while he's unlocking his bike from its place and rattling it out of the library's tottering bike-rack. Mischief has to remind Lorraine - whoever she is - about that one time he saved her wife and her newly-adopted-daughter (Meredith) because apparently, after doing _all that,_ he'd neglected to tell her that he'd also filched her phone number. Astonishment fills Nikolaj until he's bursting with it, blood champagne-fizzy.

There is something so genuine and kind about Mischief's tenor with her, about his excitement and pride at her new family-ties, that Nikolaj can't simply file it away as: _the audacity of him._

Werewolves shouldn't be capable of getting headaches.

Nikolaj is getting a headache.

"Reincarnated ant," he mutters under his breath.

Mischief mounts the back of his bike and holds onto his shoulder with a firm, confident grip. More at ease, now, Nikolaj thinks, that there is a tangible goal ahead.

Or maybe he just realizes that if he did that whole finger-flexing unsure thing he was doing on the way here _one-handed_ he'd probably fall off and eat shit.

Nikolaj swallows the bile that riding over the rough-cracked, crumbly roads inspires and ignores the sudden need to rub his temples as he listens to Mischief get cooed at in an inordinately grandmotherly way by a Banshee that he somehow ~~(of course)~~ has on speed-dial.

_Reincarnated. Fucking. Ant._

* * *

The motel's issue is an abandoned golem.

That, in and of itself, wouldn't have caused so much distress: golems tend to be at their master's leisure. But _this_ golem has been possessed by a gaggle of baby imps.

Because why not?

Mischief has to wonder what on earth the golem's Caster was thinking, leaving it lying around and vulnerable to any supernatural thing that walked by. Then again, for all he knows, the golem's Caster could be dead. Yikes. Okay, moving on.

Lorraine has agreed to scream the golem's name through the phone. That is to say, she will do the Thing as soon as they have the golem (not to mention its name) in-hand and the phone hooked up to a speaker that won't, you know, blow up the instant Banshee frequency goes online.

She merrily wishes him good luck before he disconnects the call.

_Ha._

Now, where oh where would a gaggle of baby imps with a weaponized golem hide?

Underground, probably.

... Mischief has an idea. It's not a very _fun_ idea, but... he probably won't die? Nah, he won't die. It'll be _fine._

He has made promises, after all, that he would like to keep.

 **Thirsty,** that fast old-familiar voice persists pointedly.

Mischief's mouth quivers a weak smile. And a tree he needs to feed, can't forget that.

* * *

Mischief leaves Nikolaj with several tasks before disappearing who knows where, after they've returned to the motel.

Number one: "Get Gale outside of the boundary. It'll probably help her sanity to know what's been going on all these years."

"Who's Gale?" Nikolaj asks, astounded, "And what boundary?"

Mischief throws up a handful of mountain ash that swirls in the air, solidifies, then surrounds the whole Gods damned motel and clicks into place like a particularly sturdy supernatural choke-collar. For a _building._ Nikolaj stares.

"Gale's the motel owner," Mischief says, more hurried than caring, "And _that_ boundary."

He drags Nikolaj over the ash-line like he didn't just do two blatantly impossible things.

Nikolaj's heart plays an unsure little beat that seems to reverberate with the ache in his head.

He knew— he's known— Mischief is powerful. He understood that. He thought he understood that.

But this is... more. Isn't it? So much more.

Number two: "The golem's name will be on its forehead— probably in Hebrew. Do you know Hebrew?"

"No."

"Damn. Well, we'll figure something out."

"We'll _figure something out?"_

"Sure. Yeah. Probably. Somehow. Oh, give me your phone. I think there might be an app for this. And I need to give you Lorraine's number."

Nikolaj's eyes narrow in suspicion. _"Why?"_

Number three: When Mischief wrangles the golem in Nikolaj's direction, Nikolaj is meant to have called Lorraine, and to have attached his phone to— "Um."

"Um," Nikolaj repeats, with the same kind of overwhelmed, ask the Gods if they're seeing this or if you're going mad feeling he's had all day.

"What kind of speakers can handle the wail of a Banshee?" Mischief asks. He's squinting at Nikolaj but the question doesn't really seem to be for him.

Nevertheless, Nikolaj shrugs a very bewildered, very sharply meant, _I don't fucking know._

Mischief's expression clears with slow dawning. He casts his eyes up. "Hah," he says.

Nikolaj follows his gaze. Sees only the ceiling and the fire alarm. Looks back at Mischief in complete confusion.

"The fire alarm system," Mischief tells him with the sudden enthusiasm of the epiphanous.

And how in the hell, Nikolaj wonders, is he supposed to manage that?

Number three: "Don't worry about the imps."

"Why not?" Nikolaj asks, mildly outraged.

Mischief flashes him a look, "Because the boundary can hold them, and because we can deal with them later."

"The boundary can't hold the golem?"

There's a wicked grin in Mischief's eyes, "Not at all," he says, like it's something to be in awe of rather than something to ardently fear.

Nikolaj's head pulses. His heart jackhammers in reply.

Number four: do not, under any circumstances, let this maniac get you killed.

* * *

Nikolaj has Gale at his back, wringing her hands confused and nerve-wracked, but thankfully not dissuading him from tearing apart a branch of wiring running along the outside of her motel's wall.

His phone is propped up against this wall. A Youtube video is playing. It is fairly safe to say that Nikolaj has next to no clue what the hell he's doing.

But he's doing it.

Gods damn him, he is doing it.

"Why couldn't we have just let the motel be cursed?" he mutters unhappily under his breath.

Gale winces slightly. "Um," she says. "Sorry?"

Nikolaj heaves a sigh.

Barely five minutes later and he is almost, _almost_ done hijacking the fire alarm's sound systems. Barely five minutes later and the earth _trembles._ A small shudder through the veins of the ground below them.

"What— was that an earthquake?" comes stuttering out of Gale's throat.

Nikolaj hisses an exhale and bids himself work faster.

There is a kind of whooping shriek in the distance that sounds an awful lot like Mischief. The earth trembles again. Nikolaj curses. Gale presses closer, worried.

The wide, uneven expanse of blacktop in front of Gale's motel makes the loudest, strangest whine of protest that Nikolaj's ever heard in his life before _cracking open_ and giving birth to an amorphous goliath. It is a silky, vivid black thing; its shifting, writhing form somewhat reminiscent of a fish or a man or nothing at all. There are four Hebrew letters printed in a dully glowing blue on what can only be its forehead.

Mischief is on its— back, Nikolaj is going to assume that that's its back.

Gale gasps, "That thing was _under—"_ her words rise to a wail, "How did I not _notice?"_

"It's usually smaller!" Mischief shouts back, with a hint of hysteria. Then, as the monstrous thing roars and tries to buck him off: "Nikolaj! Hurry up!"

"I _am_ hurrying!" Nikolaj cries back. And he is, he is absolutely hurrying.

"Well, hurry _faster!"_

"Well, excuse _me_ for not being up to your exceedingly ludicrous expectations!" He plugs several wires into the contraption that's been fastened to his phone. Quickly and haphazardly attempts to take a picture of the golem's maybe-forehead. "Not all of us can be reincarnated ants!"

Incredulous, and heaving for breath because, let's not forget, he is _hanging onto a rampaging golem for dear life,_ Mischief shouts, _"What?"_

The golem nearly manages to toss him into the motel. Gale, through her nail-biting, cries, "Focus!"

Nikolaj can hear Mischief grumbling, "Oh, I'm focused. I am the epitome of focus. Look at the definition of focus in the dictionary, man—" Nikolaj decides to tune him out.

The pronunciation app chirps, "Shen ha-ari."

Nikolaj closes the app, opens his contacts, and calls Lorraine.

"Hello—" Lorraine begins.

The golem tries to swat at Mischief as if he were a fly. Mischief flails, dodges, and screams.

"What on _earth—"_

"Shen ha-ari," Nikolaj tells her. "We don't really have the time, ma'am. That's what you need to wail. Right now. Shen ha-ari."

Lorraine, thankfully, does not need to be told twice.

The golem winds to a complete and utter halt. The letters on its maybe-forehead cease glowing.

Mischief lets out a brief noise of relief that turns shrill and cursing when the golem begins to shrink at a dangerously high speed. He hisses, smacks his hand on the letters, closes his eyes, and murmurs several unrecognizable things that all end in the thing's name. It stops shrinking quite so quickly, its name flares gold, and Mischief exhales slow.

As soon as Mischief hits the ground he collapses onto his back and says a faint, "Cool," to seemingly nobody.

"You alright, there?" Gale wonders shakily. She's as grey as oatmeal, but she's holding it together better than most civilians could in her place.

Mischief tosses them a thumbs up.

Lorraine says, into the fire alarm speakers that run through the _entire motel building,_ "Did it work?"

Nikolaj unplugs his phone from the system, tells her, "Yes. Miraculously, ma'am, it did."

"Wonderful! Tell Mischief I expect him at dinner on Tuesday."

"... Sure."

Lorraine gives a rather cheerful goodbye, and hangs up.

Nikolaj sits down. He deserves it. He's exhausted. And, also, his head _aches._

Gale hesitantly walks over to gently prod the giant hole in her parking lot, then the giant beast that made that hole (it's not so giant anymore, closing in on mouse-sized, by now), then the boy who'd ridden the beast down. "Does this mean it's over?" she asks. "Everything?"

"You've still got imps in your pipes," Mischief tells her apologetically.

Gale somehow manages to go even paler, "I have _what?"_

"Don't worry," he says kindly, patting her hand. "We'll take care of it." He looks at the massive hole in the ground. "And that. Just— give us a minute."

Gale makes a swooning sound and decides to sit down, too.

Good choice, Gale, Nikolaj thinks distantly. Good choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the other motel residents: *hear craziness *look out the window *say, ha! noooooppppe, not today satan.
> 
> Also, is this an accurate portrayal of how to hack into a fire alarm's sound systems? No, no it is not. Just imagine that fire alarm sound systems work differently ~~(forward-slash even exist)~~ in Teen Wolf's world, lol
> 
> love you guys~!!!!! so many soulhugs~!!!!!


	42. semper ad meliora

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The total outpouring of support and kindness after my little break was so overwhelmingly and enormously lovely. I'm so grateful for all of you guys, I don't even have the words. Just <33333, ugh, you all mean so much to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
> 
> Now, onto that one gratuitous road trip chapter that nobody asked for, but I hope you'll all enjoy!!!!
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Stiles has PTSD (so does Nikolaj, honestly, but he's a lot more stable than our munchkin at the moment), and Touch Aversion, also: on Nikolaj's previous family situation being pretty freaking toxic

A gaggle of baby imps - _without_ a weaponized golem - is honestly relatively harmless.

All the golem did was make their deepest, darkest, most hyper destructive dreams come true. Now that it's gone, though... Well, they _are_ just babies. Toddlers. Whatever.

Mischief wraps them up in mountain ash and sets them aside while he, Nikolaj, and Gale deal with the startled motel guests, who'd all heard Lorraine's screaming through the fire alarm system and who'd all come out of their rooms or looked through their windows only to find a giant _hole_ in the parking lot. It is easier than it should be to convince them that a water-main exploded and that, while there were some technical difficulties afterwards, everything's _fine_ now.

"Are civilians _always_ this gullible?" Nikolaj murmurs next to him, with the bewildered note of someone who has lived in a compound full of werewolves his whole life.

"Yup," Mischief says, assuming the cheerful. It's a little terrifying if you give yourself the time to dissect it, how willing the unknowing are to accept the status quo in defiance of reality. Like, it works in the supernatural world's favour most of the time, but still.

Nikolaj suppresses a shudder.

Mischief pats him consolingly on the shoulder.

After the public is taken care of, Mischief sets himself up in Nikolaj's room and begins ritual casting. See, imps don't belong in this realm in the first place, so all he really has to do is open a door and shove them through. The difficulty is in the timing and the _closing_ of that door. He's not about to leave any wiggle-room for anything that might want to take advantage of what is left _ajar._

He has learned that lesson, in torturous magnitudes. He'd rather not have it thrown in his face again.

Nikolaj, thoroughly wrung-out, collapses onto his bed and sleeps through the whole ordeal, which is perfectly fair.

Gale is in her office, very likely wringing her hands. He'll get to her in a moment, but he needs to take care of this first. She'd told him she understood that. He'd believed her.

There is a tiny mouse-sized golem in his pocket. It's his now. He claimed it. Mostly on accident. He has no fucking clue what he's going to do with it, but, later, later, later.

This, now.

Focus.

Breathe.

**Thirsty.**

_Oh, shut up, you._

* * *

When Nikolaj wakes up, there's a note on the nightstand directing him to the motel office. He packs up his things and goes; he needs to check out, anyway.

Along the way his eyes drink in the parking lot, slow and a little wondering. The sky is soft and grey, heavy clouds huddling down as if seeking comfort in the life germinating below. The blacktop rolled out in front of the motel is clean, unblemished, dry and dark. Nikolaj wonders how Mischief did it.

He walks into the office and Andrea is there, draped in the gown he'd fixed for her, sitting with Gale and Mischief over coffee and tea behind the reception desk. They're chatting like they're old friends, like they've known each other since childhood. Easy.

Still, Mischief leaves them for Nikolaj when he approaches, and they commence with checking out. Mischief dodges Gale and Andrea's gratitude gracefully, humbly; inspires them to give their sentiments to Nikolaj instead. Nikolaj feels wholly unworthy.

He didn't do anything.

He hadn't _wanted_ to do anything.

And yet these women hug him with relieved smiles and misty eyes and their most earnest thanks.

Mischief holds the door open for him. Strides ahead, hands resting languidly in his pockets. Red hoodie, library-scent, a carelessness that is not careless at all.

It hits him, then, how he is able to forget that Mischief is just a bumbling boy in a gas mask. Because Mischief is this, too: somebody who saves little pieces of the world wherever he goes. Somebody who'll never stop, even if it could kill him.

Mischief saved him, once. For nothing. For no reason other than the fact that he was there and needed saving.

Mischief's packbond sounds like an old lullaby his mother used to sing. One that he's always remembered, but has been trying to forget.

Mischief won't let him forget.

Of course he won't.

He's Nikolaj's spymaster. He's something even a God wouldn't be able to understand; he's a reincarnated fucking ant. He is, perhaps, the optimistic determination of humankind.

And he's Nikolaj's friend.

"You don't care at all, do you?" Nikolaj says, when they're in front of his bike.

Mischief looks at him, expression affectionate and listening. No expectations lingering in his manner, not a thing to disappoint.

Nikolaj flashes his eyes. Blue. Soul-scarred.

Mischief seems to grin. "Told you I didn't."

"Yes," Nikolaj says. "But..." _I didn't believe you._

Mischief pats his shoulder. "C'mon," he says. "We've got places to be, yeah?"

Nikolaj swallows. "Yeah. Alright."

* * *

They've been riding together for three days when Mischief says: "I've gotta head back, soon."

Lusagaria. Nikolaj knows.

"I would teleport us the rest of the way, but..."

Nikolaj arches a brow. "It doesn't work like that?"

The skin around Mischief's eyes crinkles. "I need an emotional connection to the place I'm going— or something like that. And I've only been to Brazil once. If I tried it I'd probably just accidentally bring you back home with me."

"Not home anymore," Nikolaj tells him, less gentle than he should be.

They're camping tonight. Two sleeping bags pressed close together under a curtain of starlight, a small fire crackling dutifully nearby, and a mountain ash boundary encircling them because Mischief is paranoid.

Said paranoid companion lifts his gaze to the sky, a distant hue of sadness colouring his voice when he asks, "Why not?"

Nikolaj looks away, too. Not up, but at the fire. Tendrils of golden-grey that shiver and nod and kick. Barely contained destruction.

Does he have enough words for this?

Mischief's hand sneaks out of his sleeping bag to find his, to fold their palms together, and Nikolaj is beginning to understand, by now, how meaningful that is. Mischief touching him. Mischief touching anyone.

"I was always going to leave," he says. "I needed to, after. After killing them. The only people I still feel connected to are you and Kali, everyone else is," he clicks his tongue, waves his free hand. They're gone. Cut off. They'd meant so little to him, in the end. "I was stuck," he says, "with those people, in that subdivision of Pack. And I loved them sometimes, but I hated them more. Hated them more _often._ They were all that I knew, and I never thought I'd be able to escape them, not really. Then — you."

"Hi," Mischief says quietly, sweet and somewhat devastating.

Nikolaj glances at him with a startled little laugh, "Hi."

Mischief's expression is very soft and very kind. The hand holding his squeezes, briefly. Nikolaj squeezes back.

"You saved my life," he tells him, because it's true, and it merits saying.

Mischief's forehead crinkles as if he's scrunching up his nose, underneath that mask. "Nah, not really. I might've helped, but mostly? It was all you, dude. You made the conscious choice, you know? The conscious effort. You _decided."_

But could he have made that decision, without Mischief's help?

Maybe.

He'd wanted to.

Gods, how he'd wanted to.

Nikolaj's gaze is drawn to the fire again. The air in his lungs trembles. "The compound never was my home," he confesses. "I lived there." In terror, in constriction, in constant psychological warfare with the ones who were supposed to be taking _care_ of him. "But it wasn't mine."

"Okay," Mischief says, like it's just that simple.

"You're infuriating," Nikolaj says, strangled on the laughter pressing against the roof of his mouth and the sob burning like acid in his throat.

"I know," Mischief says, and he sounds gleeful.

"Go to sleep."

"You first."

Nikolaj glares at him.

Mischief's eyes twinkle a grin.

In the morning Mischief will reiterate his intentions to leave before easily, lightly, and generously adding: "But not yet."

* * *

"I wouldn't have wanted you to," Nikolaj says one rainy afternoon.

They've been together for a week and a half. Lusagaria is ever-looming on the horizon. They're in a very small, very crowded restaurant in Mexico. Less for their hungry stomachs than for their worn-out minds. Mischief is having a bad day: woke up screaming last night after barely three hours of sleep, wouldn't go _back_ to sleep, is all flinching hyper-awareness and half desperate overprotectiveness, now. His scent is so filled with saltwater that the books are nearly drowned. His bond is muted, brittle.

Nikolaj hates it but he doesn't know how to help, either.

Mischief's eyes jump from perpetually scanning their surroundings to Nikolaj's face. His hands twitch around the cup of coffee that he isn't going to drink. The raw skin at the tips of his fingers cracks, introduces iron and copper into the air.

"What?"

"You said that you'd teleport us the rest of the way if you could. I'm telling you that I wouldn't have wanted you to."

Mischief's leg is jiggling underneath the table. It has been ever since they sat down. "Why?"

Nikolaj shrugs. Tears open a pack of sugar to spill into Mischief's coffee cup. "Because I think that getting there is part of it." Part of breaking all of his packbonds, part of wrenching himself from his old life, part of _moving on._

"Okay," Mischief says. Then he sucks in a deep breath, and, with deliberate effort, picks his legs up and crosses his ankles in Nikolaj's lap. "Tell me what day it is?"

Nikolaj does. He opens his pocket watch and rattles off the date and the time to the second. He presses his knuckles to Mischief's steel-toed boot, where he knows Mischief will feel the armour, the pressure, but not the touch. He murmurs, "You're safe. I've got you," and means it with more of himself than he thought he had to offer.

Mischief trusts him, deeply and undeniably. Sometimes Nikolaj feels undeserving of that. Sometimes he feels like he'd fight tooth and nail to _earn_ it, all of it, everything that Mischief gives to him. Sometimes he feels an insurmountable gap that he couldn't begin to explain, not to anyone, least of all himself.

"Nickel for your thoughts," Nikolaj says, hushed.

Mischief's eyes are on him, vaguely smiling, "How about a nickel for yours?"

If there is one thing having perfect memory recall is good for, it's telling stories, however dry and impersonally neutral they may be told; it serves to distract Mischief from his own mind, which is... better.

Better than nothing, at least.

* * *

Their last day together, they spend in a small coastal town that's one-fourth fish market, one-fourth docks, and two-fourths beach. They're sitting on top of a craggy, yellowed rock that overlooks the sea; their beaten-up bicycle has been arranged precariously on a little niche overhang before them while the road they rolled in on is directly behind.

Mischief's sitting cross-legged in front of him, his hair a frizzy mess that he'd tried and failed to bundle into a bun atop his head this morning. His face is framed by wiry, electrified curls.

The sky is close and menacing; damp, heavy, full of scarcely subdued lightning. It's mid-afternoon but the whole world seems dark and grim and stormy because of it.

Yet there are people still shouting their wares, and children still playing, and swimmers still swimming.

Mischief, half delicately, places three items between them.

Nikolaj quirks a brow at him. _Goodbye presents? Really?_

Mischief rolls his eyes. "Shut up," he says. "You're Pack, I can do whatever I want."

He points to the first item: a cellphone. "This has three numbers in it already, okay? Mine, Kali's, and Peter Hale's, all three on speed-dial in that order. Please, for the sake of my sanity, try to keep it on you at all times."

"Hey, I'm not the one constantly getting us into trouble—" Nikolaj begins haughtily. (He has every right. They'd spent yesterday negotiating with a herd of rogue Selkies, something which they absolutely would _not_ have been doing if Nikolaj had had any say.)

"Nie," Mischief says, and spends the next three minutes ranting in fluid Polish. Nikolaj doesn't understand one whit of Polish. He thinks Mischief has taken that as some sort of challenge, because ever since he found out he's been speaking it more often, as if intent to teach it by dint of proximity.

The phone is pushed closer to him; "For _my_ sanity," Mischief insists, "please."

Nikolaj concedes to pocket the phone with a sigh. "I assume I should be expecting texts from you every other hour, then, mother?"

"Oh, absolutely."

_"Infuriating."_

"Helps me sleep at night."

Mischief moves onto the second item before Nikolaj can say anything contrary about his sleeping habits, which are downright _awful._ It looks like a stuffed black bunny, only there are Hebrew letters stitched a faintly unnatural gold on its forehead.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Look," Mischief says, attempting to forestall protests, "golems are practically puppets. Except you can puppeteer them with your mind and they'll pretty much bend the laws of physics and reality to suit your whims, which is bad in the hands of baby imps, but not so bad in the hands of— well, you. And, anyway, I don't need it, so. Here. Just in case, you know. If anything happens—"

"Mischief."

Mischief bats his eyelashes hopefully, somewhere between playful and dead-serious.

Nikolaj stands his ground.

The playfulness disappears. "I care about you," he says, low, "and I hate not being able to keep the people I care about safe but I really— I'm just one guy. One body. There's only so much ground I can cover."

Mischief's words enter his bloodstream and pulse there, vibrant with the mild terror underlays them, the exhaustion. Two things Mischief always seems to be carrying.

Nikolaj picks up the stuffed-bunny golem. It's soft. Kind of cute. It stares up at him with beady glass blue eyes.

Mischief's shoulders are hunched, fingers twitching like he wants to count them. Maybe he _is_ counting them. The most accurate measure of his stress, Nikolaj has learned, is how blatant he's being about it: there is a massive difference between a movement that could pass for a nervous tic, and holding your hands up in front of your face in full-on hyperventilating desperation.

"Fine," Nikolaj says, allowance after allowance.

Mischief's entire being melts by fractions.

The third item is a bracelet. Gold and iron, all wild-blooming cactus flowers and a rosy bird that seems sunset's cross between an owl and a phoenix. Nikolaj inhales speculatively. It smells like fizzing, bubbling mercury, like fresh magic and ozone. He knows Mischief's jeweller's nature. If it is him giving you the thing, be it ring or pendant or dagger, there is always more to it than meets the eye.

He gazes a silent question.

Mischief answers, as he always does, without needing to hear it spoken. "It's," he says, and stops. Stalls, shoulders shifting cagey. "Protection."

Nikolaj has a feeling that's not all it is. But of course it's not. Mischief is the most high-strung, paranoid, nervous wreck he's ever met in his life.

He'd known little of that while he was playing spy. He's seen more, lately. Hasn't even scratched the surface of it yet, he guesses.

"For your sanity?" he drawls, already picking the bracelet up and settling it round his wrist.

Mischief grins, eyes shimmering vivid, "Yeah, man. Thanks."

"Shouldn't it be the other way around?"

"Nope. This suits just fine."

"You're infuriating," Nikolaj tells him, refusing to sound fond.

"Sure," Mischief says, "and you're predictable. Get a new insult, brother, that one's fading fast."

Nikolaj hums. Reaches out slowly, inquiringly. Mischief closes his eyes and tilts his head in acceptance of the touch. Nikolaj cradles the back of his skull, bends their foreheads together. This is a gesture of intimacy, of family, of _Pack._

"I'll see you again," he whispers. _"Little brother."_

Mischief shudders. "Yeah," his voice is thick and rough. He grasps both of Nikolaj's hands in his and squeezes, briefly. "Definitely."

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

The warmth of a second body fades. The fluttering too-fast heartbeat vanishes. An old lullaby still echoes through the drafty corridors of his soul, but he is alone, now.

Nikolaj gets up. Collects his bike and the rest of his belongings. Looks out across the vast, tumultuous waters. And leaves for better things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note : we will be hearing from Nikolaj again, but first... Lusagaria (and no, I did not actually time the Lusagaria chapters to fit snug with Halloween, lol, that would've required _planning,_ and I am not that smart. The coincidence is pretty cool, though).
> 
> PS: we are getting _so_ close to so many tying-things-together things, like, I'm excited, lol, are you excited?
> 
> PPS: soulhugs~~~~~ all the soulhugs~


	43. Peter Hale (Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, I'm late, but this chapter is a bit longer and plays with mechanics I don't normally play with and ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh; I hope you enjoy it??? I love you all!!!
> 
> (might've alternatively been titled: Indirectly, Erica Reyes / A Texting Montage, lol)
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Stiles has PTSD, Family Drama, Toxic Relationships, Emotional Abuse(???), Implied/Refrenced Bullying
> 
> [ **Note :** So, here's the thing, nobody _morally sensible_ would do what Talia is about to do here. But people are people are people, beyond whatever their bodies can or cannot do, and Talia is not the best person. She wasn't a very good person before, and she continues to be a not-so-great person now. In this chapter, she does what she does because she is _an asshole,_ not because she's paraplegic.  
> The Author is and will always be trying their best ✌]

Peter enters a new contact into his phone, simply labelled **M.**

At eleven PM after his first phone call with this person, he receives four text messages in quick succession:  
 _the motel wasnt cursed_  
 _turns out it was getting fucked with by a bunch of babies in a trenchcoat_  
 _who knew?_  
 _anyway its been taken care of ✌_

Peter stares at these messages for a long time. Then replies, carefully:  
 _A bunch of babies in a trench coat?_

Fourteen seconds later:  
 _= gaggle of imps + a golem_  
 _baby imps tho_

Peter hesitates only a moment:  
 _Are you alright?_

A minute and a half later:  
 _no shadows on me big bad wolf_  
 _im fine_

And Peter is struck by the bewildered realization that not only is he being lied to, but there's absolutely nothing he can do about it.

Peter and Noah had both agreed, after many emotionally weighted and taxing conversations, that they'd wait Mischief out. That they'd _have_ to. You do not earn someone's trust by calling them out on their secrets before they're ready, by putting them on the defensive in such a way.

"What if he never tells us?" Noah had asked, shaking and ten-thousand miles beyond distraught.

"Some things," Peter had told him, "cannot be forced. Some things deserve patience."

He'll never forget the look in Noah's eyes: despondently pale, red-rimmed, and dripping salt water.

For now, they had agreed. Just for now, it was better to wait.

Peter spends the rest of the night receiving and replying to a volley of text messages about apertures between realms, golems, and, for some reason, waltzes. There's an energy of desperation underlying the first hour of this discourse, an urge to cover, as if digital rambling will somehow alleviate Peter's anxieties by causing him to become too exasperated or vexed or otherwise _distracted_ to recall why he ought to be anxious in the first place.

If that's the game, it doesn't work.

At all.

If Peter is wrong about the design behind this frenetic rush, however, then whatever the reason _is,_ it runs its course by midnight.

The texts begin arriving more slowly, more sprawling, and more grammatically correct. Their exchange does not come to a close until well after six o'clock.

* * *

Talia had been a _terrible_ Alpha.

Before Laura, Peter had carried only the barest hints of that knowledge. Now it becomes all the more vivid by comparison. By dichotomy.

But she is still his sister and, despite everything, he still loves her.

Perhaps he shouldn't, perhaps he should just leave her to waste away as she seems so bent on doing. He doesn't. He goes to her door an hour or two after dawn with a platter of breakfast in hand. Carrie is the one who answers his knock. Carrie, who has gone from curadh gan chloí to contemptuous nursemaid, her steadfast loyalty so perfectly mingled with her bitter resentment.

She glances at the food, at him, face contorting to hide a sneer. "I'll take it in to her."

"No," Peter says coolly. "I rather think you won't. Siofra has requested your assistance in the kitchen."

This comment will irk her more than any other: Siofra is Carrie's usurper, a quiet, plain, spiritual girl who'd gained charge of the cooks and gardeners almost immediately after Carrie had lost it. Less out of an ambitious nature and more out of a _diligent_ one. She had seen that things needed to be taken care of, put in order, kept functioning, so she'd stepped up. Laura had been grateful, then, after a week or two, charmed.

The curadh gan chloí presently measure eight: Róisín, Henley, Siofra, Helena-Mae, Lily, Denna, Ailbhe, and Laura herself.

Carrie knows by now that she cannot win her way back in, probably knew it the moment she was demoted. How it must chafe, to be ordered where once she had done the ordering. How it must chafe, to see Siofra rise above in every aspect and then do her job so much _better._

Peter can't imagine.

Every meal he's had under Siofra's power and Laura's command has been a _delight._

Peter smirks, "Run along, pet."

Carrie stops attempting to hide her sneer and shoves past him.

"Do you _have_ to rile her up like that, Peter?" Talia wonders from her sick-bed, long-suffering.

Peter clears the laughter from his throat as he steps into the room, shuts the door behind. "No. But it does amuse the nerves."

He is still so unused to meeting his sister in her bedroom. She'd always been such an active person, before, and she hadn't liked anyone invading her personal space. Not her husband, not her children, definitely not the only blue-eyed prowling amongst the innocent lambs. Their mother had been an exception, when she was alive. Peter had been an exception, too, back then. For a while.

She's laid up beneath a quilt and a comforter, her wheelchair set to gather dust in a corner. She isn't sick in the way of civilians. There is no bodily sickness to be _had_ in the way of werewolves.

Three days after the treaty, Talia had been told that they'd be celebrating Lusagaria. She hasn't gotten up since. She claims her legs hurt, she claims that she cannot move, she claims many things.

Her heartbeat skips a lot, these days.

Alan had diagnosed her, seriously and sincerely, with spite. He'd smiled placidly at her ensuing vitriol, asked after one of Ben-J's experimental teas, and had steadily swallowed two cupfuls whilst she railed and raved at him before just as steadily leaving, his compliments to the sommelier.

She has, in the thereafter, pronounced no less than half of them ungrateful, cruel, and— worse.

(She'd once called Peter a half-souled tyrant, intent on torturing her. They'd been in the middle of physical therapy. Him, helping her to exercise her legs, had half-laughed, "Gods, Talia, tell me how you really feel," stung, aching, and simultaneously caught off guard by how ridiculous she was being. Her total surrender to immaturity was _amazing._

Laura doesn't go near her anymore. Peter hadn't been privy to their last meeting, but he can guess at its contents. Talia has not made it secret that she blames her daughter for her condition.)

"Breakfast?" she asks.

"Breakfast," Peter agrees, setting the platter down on her nightstand, sitting on the bed beside her. His fangs are immediately pressing against his gums, claws flush beneath his fingernails, instincts boiling in the marrow of his spine. He ignores all this, does not let it change his countenance.

He does not _like_ to be near Talia, but he can remember a time when he once did. He can remember her softer, kinder. He is capable of forgiving her for her transgressions in Alphahood (mostly because he foiled nearly all of them), but for what she did to her children?

He will always love her.

He will always be imagining ripping her throat out with his teeth.

Two paradoxical, inexorable facts of life fretting sourly in his belly.

He feeds her. She nags him, pesters for information and picks apart all that he gives her (read: next to nothing). She hates them celebrating Lusagaria. It is a heathen's festival, she says, and they ought to be above it. Shy, he tells her, would be absolutely jumping for _fucking joy_ right now.

This causes her to pause. Whenever Shy is brought up now, Talia's lips tremble, something unseen and hidden in the depths of her eyes flinching. She begins to clasp her sight on shadows, wary, skittish.

"Looking for something, Tal?" he asks, "Need I remind you that our sister is not of this world?" His voice rises from the blackest tar of his heart, "You saw to that."

Her eyes glitter a crackling frenzy, her lips peel back over her teeth.

Ah. That was a blow too far.

"No," she hisses, _"you_ did. I gave you the order, but _you_ did it, because that was your _duty._ To keep your Pack safe. Have you so lost sight of that? Is that _dead_ part of you really clouding your judgement this much?"

"Talia," he murmurs, cold.

"The blue-eyed are ruinous," she says, snatching a hand out to cling to him, harsh with urgency. "They'll do nothing but tear us apart. Styx, they already are! My Pack," she says, "my Pack will die like this."

Peter wrenches himself away from her. Stands. Smooths the wrinkles from the sleeve of his suit jacket, absently re-adjusts his cuff. How cut off is she, that she actually believes that? Her packbond with him is so thin, a wisp of fog on the moor, and he has to wonder if she has a strong bond with _anyone_ beyond Carrie anymore.

"Your Pack," he tells her, the kind of delicate-prim he'd affect with a stranger, "is flourishing, truly flourishing, for the first time in _decades._ If only you could get your head out of your ass long enough to see it you'd realize how Gods blessed _glorious_ it is."

She drips venom like a rabid spider. He ignores her. Talks over her: "I'm leaving for a week or two. Wanted to tell you first."

He can't even remember why. He'd wanted to give her reassurance, maybe, that he wouldn't be failing to visit her out of avoidance. (He was one of the few, few, _so_ few people who cared to visit her at all.)

Her claw-tipped fingers curl into the quilt, white-knuckled fists scrunching up the fabric and tearing it like paper. "Where?" It comes out a rasp. Her eyes flicker around the corners of the room. Sweat glistens across her protruding collarbone.

He takes pity on her. Rubs a scenting hand over her cheeks and her hair. She loses about half of her tension, breathes, regains a quarter of it and glares at him. He grins a flash of fang at her.

"Kali's. I've been invited to spend Lusagaria with the Giliberto Pack."

Talia gasps as if she's been struck, seethes, "I can't _believe_ you, Peter. Laura's endangering us by leaving the Pack unguarded to do her silly Gods damned _bonding ritual,_ which is already inexcusably reckless and irresponsible, and now you're _leaving_ on top of that? What on earth are you _thinking?"_

He could ask the same of her, on any count.

"I am thinking," he says quietly, "that those sisters could eat the fucking world if they wanted to. I am thinking that I trust my Alpha to keep my Pack safe while I'm gone. Isn't it funny that I never could've said the same while you were in that happy power?"

Every inch of muscle Talia owns is strained to stony stillness, her jaw clenched so tightly her teeth creak, her eyes wide and glistening with tears or hatred. _"Get out,"_ she says, low and rough and awful.

"Oh," he breathes, "gladly."

Peter loves his elder sister. Almost helplessly.

But, he thinks, he might be learning to hate her, too.

* * *

From M:  
 _well_ duh _golems can cross a mountain ash line_  
 _they're literally_ made _of condensed mountain ash_  
 _jeez_  
 _whoever told you about mountain ash was either very dumb or bullshitting you_

from much ado:  
 _Alan. It was Alan. And I'm going to tell him you said that._

From M:  
 _oh_  
 _that makes sense_  
 _he thinks that face you make when you want to kill him but won't bc he's a card-carrying member of the handful of ppl you can stand is_ hilarious

from much ado:  
 _... I'm telling him you said that, too._

From M:  
 _feel free, my dude_  
 _have fun_

* * *

Derek is waiting for him in the hall outside of Talia's room. There is no emotion on his face but his scent is in turmoil and he almost looks _purple_ with how blotchy his skin is.

"How much of that did you hear?" Peter asks, careful, heart sinking slow.

Derek does this little shrug grimace that Peter takes to mean: _everything._ Then he dive-bombs Peter's chest. Peter is alright with this. He holds his nephew close and he pets his hair and he breathes him in even though the well-water is salty and the moss is decaying and the cracks in the stones have swallowed every wishing-coin to void.

"You hid yourself so well I didn't even notice you," he says, injecting a note of approval into his voice. "Shall I give you a gold star? Or would you rather have that special edition of Dostoyevsky you've been trying to steal from me for the past three months?"

Derek breathes a shaky laugh into his shirt and Peter gathers up a smile, holds him closer.

* * *

from much ado:  
 _Metaphysics at two o'clock in the morning, Mischief?_

From M:  
 _eh_  
 _what can i say_  
 _like to keep people on their toes_

from much ado:  
 _You most certainly do._  
 _But you should be sleeping._

From M:  
 _am i keeping you up?_  
 _bc i can stop_

from much ado:  
 _No._  
 _I'd really much prefer you didn't. It's nice to have tangible evidence that you're not bleeding out in a ditch somewhere, and I'm a heavy sleeper. Send as many texts as you like, even if I don't respond; it'll keep me from going grey._

From M:  
ha  
 _you're not funny_

from much ado:  
 _I'm being completely serious._

From M:  
 _youre 24, dude_  
 _p sure youre safe_

from much ado:  
 _Perhaps._  
 _Perhaps, indeed, the stress will get to me, and ere we meet again I will have gone bald._

From M:  
 _..._  
 _i--_  
 _yeah, okay, i'll text you whenever tf i feel like it then_  
 _baldie_

from baldie:  
 _You have my eternal gratitude._

From M:  
 _it really should be the other way around_

from baldie:  
 _Give me this one._

From M:  
 _..._  
 _yeah ok sure_  
 _hey do you think the regularities of the universe are like_  
 _habitual?_  
 _when did the habits start? why? who told carbon to act like carbon?_

from baldie:  
 _Carbon, I'd assume._

From M:  
 _i'd smack you_  
 _but you're too far away_

* * *

When Peter and Derek have thoroughly decompressed, Peter heads them toward Laura. Derek under his arm, clingy, adorable little nephew. Peter cannot help his smile, nor can he help the bittersweetness that tinges it.

Laura is in the sunroom, lying on the white wicker weave couch with a cloud of dusty sunlight all around her. Her head is in Siofra's lap, and Denna is sitting on the floor at Siofra's feet, flapping a fold-up fan as she goes over Henley's calculus homework with a stern expression.

Laura cracks open an eye to look at them, "You guys visited Mom, huh?"

"In a manner of speaking," Peter says.

Derek simply shrugs. Moves solitarily toward the girls; glares, grunts, tugs, and with sheer grumpy stubbornness gets Siofra and Denna up and moving out of the room, Denna complaining the whole way. Derek offers Peter a faint smirk as brushes past with them. Peter rolls his eyes, but mouths _thank you._ Derek smells pleased, which is nice.

Laura, who had at once protested being robbed of her pillow, has now rolled onto her side, propping her head up on her elbow. She smiles ruefully, "I'm guessing you wanted to speak with me alone?"

"Yes."

"Okie-dokie." Her cheeks dimple, her eyes radiate cheerfulness. "What's up, Uncle Peter?"

Peter decides to start somewhere close to easy: "Do you recall Mischief calling you Lulu-love?"

"Hard to forget," she says, rolling the shoulder that is not currently supporting her. She grins a little, "Want me to back you up with Alan? ''Hey, he knows family info he couldn't _possibly_ know unless he was a Seer, c'mon, pay up.''"

Peter's mouth twitches. He shakes his head and pads over to her, moving the vase of calla lilies to perch on the coffee table. "He isn't a Seer."

"Really? Damn. But then—"

"Time traveller," he says. She startles. "And that is no betting trifle. I am ninety-nine point six percent certain that Mischief Giliberto is Stiles Stilinski from some terrible version of the future."

_"Holy. Shit."_

"Now, follow that revelation to its inevitable conclusion. Think of _everything_ that he has been a catalyst for. Think of how he acts around us, what he said to Victoria that day."

Laura sits up, hands curving over the edge of the couch, epiphany making her face glow, "He cares. That's what he said. That he cared about all of us."

"I don't think he was lying," Peter says, cants his head to the side. Meets sharp, swirling hazel eyes. "Do you?"

Her answer is breathless: "No."

"Think, then. What reason would someone like that have, someone who apparently wants nothing so much as peace in our time and the security of the Hale region— what reason would he have to restore the Nemeton?"

She stares at him. Hard. Her mouth begins to curl, rogue, half-savage in its brilliance, "A Gods damned good one."

Peter honestly loves her so much it hurts. "Alpha," he says, all warmth, "I move to repeal my elder sister's sentence regarding Mischief Giliberto."

There is absolutely no hesitation. "Repeal," she laughs, breezy, "granted."

* * *

from baldie:  
 _I normally wouldn't ask, because I get the feeling you don't appreciate when I do, but it's been three days since I last heard from you, so, if you'll forgive my imprudence--_  
 _Are you alright?_

(Two hours later:) From M:  
 _im fine_

from baldie:  
 _I can feel the grey hairs sprouting, Mischief._

From M:  
 _omg_  
 _freaking drama queen_

from baldie:  
 _Thank you._

From M:  
 _..._  
 _..._  
 _weirdo_  
 _ever wish you could be in two places at once?_

from baldie:  
 _Often._

From M:  
 _yeah_  
 _kinda figured_  
 _was hanging out w a friend of mine_  
 _had to go home_  
 _i love being home, you know_  
 _i love that i_ have _a home_  
 _just felt shitty leaving them_

from baldie:  
 _I'm sorry, darling._  
 _Have you been neglecting texting them as well, all this time?_  
 _(No judgements, purely curiosity.)_

From M:  
 _if you were a cat, dude_

from baldie:  
 _I'd be dead? Yes, I know._  
 _You might feel better if you texted them. Or called. Or visited for an hour or two. You_ can _teleport, can't you? Or has that been some other Spark-ling all this time?_

From M:  
 _..._  
(Three and a half hours later:)  
 _i'm still alive_  
 _keep your luscious locks on lock petey_  
 _thanks for the advice_  
 _you were right_  
 _i'm kind of a dumbass_

from baldie:  
 _Please never, ever call me that again._

From M:  
 _*cackling*_

* * *

"So," Laura sighs, leaning back in her seat, lifting her bare feet to press flat against Peter's shins. "Mischief is cleared to revive our Sacred Grove. And our Pack considers him an intimate friend not a, a, what was it Mom said again?"

"Guest?"

Laura's head falls back with a groan, "Moon above. After everything he'd done for us?"

"I don't think she was considering that. People died, people killed, and to her the only one who was at fault—"

"Stupid," she says.

He flicks her toe so she'll look at him, raises an eyebrow at her.

She inhales deep, exhales slow, places her feet firmly on the ground again and sits up straight. "You'd probably know better than anyone what it's like to be _made_ to kill when you _don't want to."_

Peter is silent for a moment, solemn. "Perhaps," is all he says. She smiles sadly at him.

"It was so fucking awful. It still _is_ so _fucking_ awful. But it, it wasn't my fault." Her heartbeat skips, her expression goes wry, "Hard to make myself believe that." She shakes her head, "I know all the old stories, though, about the Nemeton. I know what our Pack _used_ to be. We were its guardians, its champions, its _chosen._ Alan showed me something the other day. Well, more like: he let me feel something that he can apparently always feel. The ley lines— they're like these currents of magic and electricity running through the earth, huge crisscrossing streams and rivers everywhere. Anyway, they feel," she grimaces, "sludgy? Like someone dumped a vat of oil into them. Alan told me they used to feel _worse,_ before Mischief started doing whatever he was doing. He also told me that there are records of them being healthy and clear, powerful, before the Nemeton was cut down.

"Just like our Pack was more powerful before the Nemeton was cut down."

She stares into him, takes a deep, steadying breath. "I don't know when we stopped... doing what we were meant to do, _made_ to do. But the Nemeton is our responsibility. Protecting it, keeping it, and ensuring its," she makes a small noise in the back of her throat, her hands twitching a vague gesture, "life. We failed. We _kept_ failing. And I know for a fact that if Mischief had _tried_ to tell us what he was doing any sooner, he wouldn't have gotten as far as he did. If I'm being honest with you," she says, smiling a smile he has never seen on her before, sage, he'd maybe call it, "I'm glad he didn't say anything. I'm _glad_ he got that far."

Her gaze slides to the window, to some far off distance, unreachable. The line of her shoulders is tense, and though the line of her mouth is soft, her jaw casts a stark shadow. "What happened with the Siren was. Bad. But I don't really think there is anyone to be _blamed_ for it. Or punished. The Nemeton should be alive, needs to be, because it sustains so much more than Beacon Hills, so much more than I ever realized. It's like the ley lines' moon hallowed water filter. But when it's doing its job right, it's a hub of power, a beacon and a lighthouse. That's why the Gods brought our family here, because when we're doing _our_ jobs right... but we weren't, you know? Mischief jump-started the Nemeton and we were— just, not with it."

"To be fair," Peter says, dry, "our protection detail hasn't required very much of us for the past forty-two years."

Laura chuckles, half-hearted and fleeting. "Even so. We can do better, can't we? To protect this town, protect our Sacred Grove, protect teenagers with steel bats who have the self-preservation instincts of an ant."

There is a sense of euphoric vertigo within him as he says, not allowing the full bloom of feeling into his voice just yet, "You're a teenager, too, dearheart."

"Sure." She tilts her nose up in the air with great drama, "But I'm also an Alpha."

Peter laughs, shifts from coffee table to couch and gathers her up in his arms, "I am so, _so_ proud of you, Lulu-love. Good girl," he says, kissing her hair, "that's my good girl."

Some time later, Laura asks, "Who's going to tell him?"

And Peter says, "Well, I _have_ been invited to the Giliberto compound for Lusagaria."

Laura gasps in mock offence, "You don't want to spend my first Lusagaria as Alpha with me?"

"That," he says, as he smoothes her hair back from her face, is overcome by affection at the amusement dancing in her eyes, "is a privilege that belongs to your sisters alone, is it not?"

"Yeah," she says, cotton-soft and smiling. "Still." She pushes herself up to gentle a kiss on his forehead. "May Their eyes be kind to you."

"And to you," he murmurs, kissing her forehead in turn. She beams at him.

"Love you, Uncle Peter."

"I love you more, my dearest niece."

* * *

From M:  
 _kali says she invited you_  
 _to lusagaria_

from much ado:  
 _Yes._

From M:  
 _\+ youre coming?_

from much ado:  
 _Yes._  
 _Is that going to make you uncomfortable?_

From M:  
 _no no man its_  
 _good_  
 _itll be really nice to see you again peter_

from much ado:  
 _Likewise, Mischief._

From M:  
 _can you like_  
 _if its not too much trouble would you mind_

from much ado:  
 _Mischief, if there is something you want and it is within my ability to give it, I will. You need only ask._

From M:  
 _..._  
 _keep me updated_  
 _dont text and drive but like_  
 _send me pictures of the road or whatever_  
 _please_

from much ado:  
 _Of course, darling._

From M:  
 _..._  
 _..._  
 _thanks_

* * *

Peter remembers, fondly, the first time he was given permission to pick Malia and Kiley up from school.

They'd stood in a clique full of familiar faces: Vernon Boyd, more secondhand, through the counselling his elder sister Alicia had taken up with Philip; Isaac, Stiles, and Scott, who Peter was steadily becoming accustomed to via the Sheriff; Lydia, Jackson, and Allison, a combination most often found at Lorraine or Christopher's feet; Erica Reyes, Matthew Daehler, and Danny Mahealani, the lesser-known that were nevertheless seen quite regularly.

Malia, upon being interrogated by the whole as to who Peter was (and if, insultingly, he was a kidnapper that needed _taking care of),_ had pointed at him with her bubblegum pink nails, arms overloaded with bracelets, twin french-braids plaited sharply back from her temples, and said: "That's my bio-Dad. Dad two-point-oh, or whatever. Lydia's got two Grandmas, right? It isn't that weird. Now shut up, I'm leaving."

Despite her brusque words, she'd allowed everyone a hug and a kiss before marching into Peter's car, Kiley wrapped around her like a limpet.

Kiley is a shy, waiting girl who's incredibly intelligent for her age and has an inexplicable love for literary thrillers and horrors. Finding common ground with her had been unexpectedly easy.

Malia, however, is a very rough-hewn sort of person, even at ten, all spontaneity and fiery self-reliance. Peter is absolutely besotted.

Today, they are only Malia, Kiley, Isaac, Stiles, Erica, and, surprisingly, Camden. Malia's expression rivals the tundra, whilst Isaac and Kiley seem consumed by nerves. Stiles is their grim sentinel, the gleam of molten steel hardening his eyes. Camden holds a dozing Erica on his hip, his cheek cradled against a tumble of honey-blonde curls as he sways her, crooning soft, soothing things.

Their scents are a cacophony of stress and the aftermath of adrenaline when Peter climbs out of his car to join them. "Sorry I'm late, I had," he waves a hurried hand, "work. What's wrong? What happened?"

"Erica had a seizure," Camden tells him, voice muted.

Malia cuts in: "And some numbnuts douchebags who deserve to spend the rest of their lives in a freaking _trash heap_ taped her like she was some sort of—"

"I'll take care of it," Stiles says, death in his cadence, and Malia's outrage dies in her throat. He looks at her, as serious and as solemn as any ten-year-old can be, _"I'll take care of it."_

Malia stares, then exhales every ounce of tension held in her body. "Good," she punches him, gently, on the arm. "Don't get caught."

Stiles smiles very wryly and opens his arms in offering. Malia hugs like she does all things, with absolutely no concept of any set limitations whatsoever. "Can't breathe," Stiles wheezes.

"Oh, get over it, you big baby."

They're grinning when they let go of each other, drenched in some ferocious camaraderie.

"They're going to take over the world, aren't they?" Camden says, a little faint.

"You sayin' you aren't going to help?" Isaac asks, looking up at him, strength steadily returning.

 _"Sass,"_ Camden chides. "Who do you think I am? Of course I'm going to help."

Isaac grins, just as wide and fierce and sparkling with promise as the other two.

Kylie holds her arms out for Peter to pick her up, and, once she is of a height, pushes back the curtain of Erica's hair to peek at her flushed, tear-stained little face. "You hear Stiles?" she asks, quiet, and everyone presses closer to listen, to support.

"Yeah," Erica says, too young, too frail.

The scents surrounding them lay bricks and mortar of righteous rage, fill with armoured steeds and war-time strategies, boil anticipation in the murky sewers below.

"He'll take care of it," Kylie says, with such _absolute_ faith. She leans forward to press a kiss against Erica's ruddy wet cheek. "We'll take care of you."

Erica's eyelids are heavy and slow-blinking. Her breath shudders out of her chest. "Yeah," she says, _"Yeah."_

Kylie pats her head and sinks back into Peter, nuzzling tiredly into his side.

"I could help you sue them," Peter says thoughtfully after a moment, "for recording you without your consent."

Erica makes a half-alarmed sound. Malia rolls her eyes as if she's astounded that he hasn't realized his own uselessness yet, but is marginally pleased that at least he's trying. Stiles offers him something speculative, contained.

"Nah, man," he murmurs. "But... how'd you feel about getting them suspended, instead?"

Peter smiles— for one of his little girl's best friends? For a true injustice committed? "Just give me their names."

"Huh," Stiles says. "Cool."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not the last time you will be seeing the mini-pack, in case you were all wondering, and also one of these chapters down the line is going to be called Matt Daehler Reprise, but that's all gonna be after Lusagaria 😘
> 
> on little-stiles stealing big-stiles' catchphrase, lol
> 
> also on everyone associating mischief with ants
> 
> also also on Laura, who has grown up with a functionally mute little brother, having a tendency to ramble, lol
> 
> (also also on _deaton diagnosing talia with spite_ , damn, i barely even wrote that, dude just rode into my docs and went off)
> 
> pssttt: soulhugs~~~~~


	44. Peter Hale (Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY HALLOWEEN MY DEAR READERS!!!!!!!!  
> I love all your faces!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Grief, Implied/Referenced Minor Character Death

"Well, girls," Peter says, as soon as he, Malia, and Kylie have deposited themselves into the car and are pulling out of the school's parking lot. "We have an hour before your doting parents expect you home. What would you like to do?"

Malia, in the passenger's seat, twists around as much as her seatbelt will let her to shoot Kylie a hard-questioning look.

"Milkshakes?" Kylie says, with some hope.

Malia flops back into her seat, tapping at her DS with a fingertip (he has long since stopped expecting her _not_ to lose the styluses). "Milkshakes," she says firmly.

Peter smiles. "Milkshakes it is."

Their little band washes up at The Rooklet, an eccentric coalescing of a retro diner and a chess cafe. A waitress rolls up to them in brick-red roller skates, takes their order: a dark chocolate raspberry milkshake and curly fries for Kylie, a vanilla milkshake and an everything burger for Malia, a coffee for Peter, black. Malia is seated sideways in her booth, back pressed against the wall, attention riveted on her game. Kylie takes a chair at the end of the table, because she likes chairs better. Peter has easy sight-lines on every entrance, exit, and window.

"I'm going to be out of town," he tells them, "for a couple of weeks."

Kylie makes a sound of disappointment, asks, "Where are you going? Why?"

"Don't pester, he's pro'lly got shit to do," Malia says in a distracted tone.

Kylie looks askance, first at Peter, then at her sister. _"Language,"_ she hisses.

Malia flips her off.

Kylie's expression twitches trepidatious.

"Freedom of speech," Peter says, soothing. "I don't mind. And, I'm going to another Pack's territory for Lusagaria."

"Lusagaria?" Kylie wonders.

"It's a festival that some of my kind celebrate at the end of Spring," Peter tells her. The girls have gotten to the point where they fully understand what _my kind_ implies. Malia has not yet come into her mother's power, but all of the Tates have been 'un-knitted'— they know what the Hales are.

Peter gets the feeling that the rest of their little friends might know, too, whether because they guessed or because Malia and Kylie outright told them. The Sheriff _had_ said that Stiles had gone from antsy-suspicious researcher to downright angelic innocence, a flip of the switch thing, and Laura had agreed that they needed to un-knit the rest of Noah's family (after Lusagaria, she'd said, because otherwise they were just too damn busy).

"It is meant to honour the complete renewal of life, and the Gods who gave _us_ life. We tell the old stories, and we dance, and we pray. It only lasts for three days but it will take me some time to get there, to get back."

"That sounds so cool," Kylie murmurs. Picks at the edge of the table. "Wish I could go..."

Malia glances over at them. Shifts imperceptibly. Scowls back down at her game.

Peter's lips curl, slight, and he reaches over to hook a strand of pale brown hair behind Kylie's ear, "If you still want to go next year," he says, "we can make that happen, I promise. Both of you. Okay?"

Kylie's eyes sparkle even as she nods, solemn. Malia ducks her wide, unbridled grin behind her game. Joy wraps around them, rich spices that burn one's lungs swirling thick within a cobblestone alley brimful of dancing bodies and singing violins.

Peter nearly laughs.

If he is honest with himself, the idea of sharing his culture with his daughter and her sister is _stirring._ He wants to peel back every layer and offer this fresh-dewed, beloved thing to them; not to _change_ them, or to annex them into a new religion, but because it is _his._

And they are his.

In every vital meaning of the sentiment.

The packbonds threaded through him to them take that moment to become more than smoke and mirrors, more than intangible hope. They snap into place with abrupt clarity. They _shine._

Malia jumps zero-point-five metres into the air.

Kylie's eyes go wide, hand flying to her heart. "Woah," she says, _"woah."_

Malia stares down at herself with a mixture of betrayal and pure bewilderment, "What the hell?"

Peter does laugh, now, a burst of startled sound. And then, over food and milkshakes in rook-shaped malt-glasses, he explains everything.

* * *

It is three days' travel from the Hale mansion to the Giliberto compound, through-which are both Ennis' and Hadassah's territories. And since this trip presents the perfect opportunity to test the trade-routes they'd devised after the treaty signing, Peter multi-tasks.

He sends Mischief pictures of road signs, then, when he arrives, of Cardin Hotel. Two candids of Hadassah, one where the low hanging lamp casts light softly down upon her as she's cutting a steak into bite-sized pieces for her boys, and one where she is looking up from her task and squinting a smile, about to ask what on earth he's doing. When Peter answers, the twins catch on the name Mischief in relation to his phone and immediately beg for a call so that they can talk to Elodie.

Peter, indulging them, relays all this to Mischief. His phone rings scarcely a second later. The twins climb onto his lap and take over his phone with all the sugar-happy aplomb of _tyrants._

Adorable tyrants, but tyrants nonetheless.

The children spend an hour or so chattering before relinquishing Peter's phone back into his possession.

"Hello, Peter." Mischief says into his ear.

Peter's expression, without entirely meaning to, flows into a smile. "Hello, darling."

A small pause. "Yeah," spoken as a sweet-soft sigh. "Um, thank you, by the way, for sending me all—. The pictures are. They're perfect. Thank you. I..." a sharp inhale, "someone really close to me died. In a car. And it barely makes sense to be this worried about it because they didn't even die _because_ of the car, but, just. The pictures are helping, is what I mean. So. Thanks."

"Good," Peter breathes, a little wind-blown. "I am very glad to be of service."

Mischief huffs a laugh. "Sometimes," he says, hushed, "I think you should remind me of someone, but you never do. Not quite. Not really."

"Shall I take that as a compliment?"

"Yes." The word is drenched in too much sincerity, too much _feeling,_ to be denied.

"... Alright. How is your lot doing over there?"

 _"Busy._ So busy. Don't get me wrong, it's mostly the fun kind of busy, but, _man."_

Peter grins. "And you, in particular? How are you doing?"

"I'm..." A pause, small but significant. "Better. Maybe?"

Peter does not expect the raw rush of elation he feels at that. He swallows his throat-thudding heart back into place. Is completely truthful in his reply: "That is so fucking wonderful, darling."

Mischief makes a startled noise, is quiet for some long moments, murmurs, "Weirdo."

"Shall I be taking that as a compliment, as well?"

"... fucking probably."

Peter laughs.

* * *

He takes a thirty-second video of Andrew and Sofía homeschooling the twins. Candids of a fourth of Hadassah's Pack frolicking (for that is _all_ it can be called) in the indoor swimming pool. Several voice memos recorded during an intense conversation with Hadassah about Emissaries.

She has _Druids,_ she says, but she is her _own_ Emissary. An Emissary is, after all, the person within the Pack who anchors them all to humanity, are they not? They are the intermediaries between civilians, Hunters, and the supernatural, yes? So why would they _not_ be the Alpha?

She is to lead her people. She should be the closest to that earthly part of them, so that her Pack can be that much closer, too.

Not many Alphas, Peter admits to her, go the way she is going, and while her way may be admirable, she must still be careful.

"Why?" she asks, puzzled.

Peter sighs, "Because," he says, "absolute power corrupts absolutely."

She smiles something Godly gorgeous and content, "But I have no power," she tells him. "Without my people, I am nothing. They are my soul. They are my gifts."

He stares at her. "You know, I don't think I've ever met someone entirely like you before in my life."

Her smile gains teeth, ferocity, and pride.

* * *

_I can feel the road in my bones,_ he texts Mischief at one point.

 _that doesnt make any sense,_ Mischief texts back two seconds later. Then: _pull over when you can, lay on the ground, and take some pics of interesting clouds for me_  
_please?_

_As you wish, darling._

_... hushpuppy_

_The facepalm that text caused was spectacular. Truly spectacular._

_ha_

There is a flare of affection sent through the packbond on Mischief's side that makes Peter shiver. He does as he's been bid as soon as he is able.

Sixteen random photos of the sky later, and more than one debate about what this or that cloud is trying to _be,_ and Peter's bones are beginning to feel like bones again.

 _cool,_ is Mischief's response when Peter tells him, _but that cloud is still definitely a dragon_  
_you cannot distract me_  
_from how obv correct i am_

 _Oh, I would_ never, _darling._

* * *

He doesn't spend as much time in Ennis' territory as he did in Hadassah's. He snaps a few shots of Ennis making the most exquisitely entertaining faces, of Ennis' Abuela smacking him upside the head with a rolled-up newspaper, and of the Luna's Monk operation they have.

It takes much less time than he'd have thought, to trade his wares for theirs, and to take on loan what he's going to trade at the Gilibertos'.

"Make sure that kid eats his wheaties," Ennis says as Peter's leaving. He does not need to clarify who _that kid_ is. "Kali's worried half-to-death by him— well, most of the time."

"I'll be sure to tell him, Alpha Edinger."

Ennis smirks, taps Peter's shoulder with the back of his knuckles, "Good on ya, asshole."

"Oh, is that what we're calling our friends, now?" Peter wonders, wry.

Ennis' Abuela titters, the configuration of wrinkles that is her face rearranging themselves around a smile, "That is what he _always_ calls his friends, mijito. Now, shoo. Have safe travels."

"Be a stranger," Ennis adds.

"Don't listen to him," his Abuela follows up.

So Peter goes, happiness and hope fluttering like impatient birds behind his breastbone.

* * *

Peter hasn't seen the compound since The March of The Vargr, though he has been told of it.

It is still somewhat of a surprise to hear so many heartbeats _outside_ of the compound, as quiet as they may be beneath Kali's howlers, who are singing their animal song for his impending arrival. Loud crowing yips hurled toward the sun.

Along the road are two painted corpses. Not even the maggots touch them. They decay, as is a dead body's wont, thoroughly bereft of any natural or human intervention.

Pitiful creatures, Peter thinks as he passes them by, but he does not pray moon's mercy. From the few tales Julia, Kali, and Mischief have let touch their lips, these two don't deserve it.

The Gate rolls open for him, casts him into a frenzy of joyed cries and eager howls. Serenade and JP actually go so far as to _climb his car,_ whilst the rest dance and caper about.

"Yes, yes," Peter says after he parks and exits the vehicle, "now if you two would be so kind as to _get down."_

They do, all whirlwind conviviality, pressing scenting hands to his shoulders and cheeks. He is embraced by no less than five of Kali's people, the coming of Lusagaria making them happier and freer with their affections, before Kali herself calls out to him, pushing through the crowd.

Then — there is a moment.

A moment where the air swirls. Where every single living scent is relentlessly _drowned._ The deep-rich intoxicating aroma of condensed lavender oil spills wild, as if one hundred barrels of the stuff has been poured over every single last one of them until they're all _drenched_ in it.

 _"Peter,"_ Mischief says, luxurious brown eyes wide and so indecipherably full. Their packbond pulses, the fissures in all those walls he's constantly keeping up dripping— devotion.

Pure, raw, unknowable devotion.

"Hello," Peter says, low, warm, _rough._

Kali's howlers move, create a clear path between them as if driven by instinct. Just in time, it seems, because not two seconds later Mischief is lurching forward at a dead-run and launching himself into Peter's arms.

"Hi," he says, breathless, trembling all the way through. "Fucking," a wobbly laugh escapes him, tumbling directly into Peter's ear, rushing through his blood, exhilarating his heart, "fucking _hi."_

Peter chuckles, chest-deep, marrow-deep, clutching Mischief to himself as tightly as he possibly can. "Yes, I do think we covered that."

Mischief makes a small sound that does its damndest to crack Peter's heart wide open, and melts into him; a soft, yielding, still shaking like a leaf body.

"Shh," Peter murmurs, nuzzling several caressing kisses into Mischief's hair. "Hush, darling. We're okay."

Or, at the very least, he thinks, we _will_ be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last two chapters have probably been me humouring my love for parallels with far too much indulgence, oops, lol  
> i really hope you liked this chapter, even if nothing spoopy/halloweenish really happened, but it _will_ next chapter, promise, because  
> *drumroll*  
> Up Next: Lusagaria


	45. Peter Hale (Part III)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really really love all of you, stay safe & enjoy, just, don't worry about anything else for a minute, it'll all keep, give yourself a second to breathe
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Light Touch Aversion, Implied/Referenced (before-after) Apocalypse

Kali hugs him, too, when he and Mischief finally contrive to let go of each other. The look she gives him as they draw apart is sharp and assessing, then dangerously sly.

"Come, Left Hand Hale," she says, with a welcoming gesture and a wide, cherry-rich grin. Then, turning to her people, lifting her voice powerful: "Lusagaria approaches!"

Her Howlers give wild, dizzied cheers of excitement. Kali basks in it a moment, before moving to lead Peter to the visitors' quarters. Mischief snags his sleeve between a thumb and forefinger and hangs on, drifting a few thoughtful steps behind them.

Peter looks over his shoulder at one point, sees Mischief's head bowed, oaken curls pulled back into a frazzled ponytail. He's staring at their hands, but he must feel Peter's eyes on him because his eyelashes flutter, and his own eyes flick up. Hazy, maybe; smiling small. He jiggles Peter's sleeve and tilts his head toward Kali, a gentle order to pay attention to her instead.

And Peter will, but first—

He turns the hand nearest Mischief's up, palm open. _If you'd like,_ his expression says.

Mischief's gaze shifts back down; returns to Peter dimmer, wryer. He squeezes Peter's cuff and shakes his head, seas eddying into his lavender, filling it with salt water tumbled books and vast caverns of sunken libraries.

Peter lets his hand drop and smiles, tries to convey all of his understanding in one fleeting second of syrupy silence. Mischief makes a soft sound and urges him to look ahead once more.

Peter does.

Their path clings to the Gate's fencing, with all of its colourful cloth and ribbon ties, its varied and piecemeal offerings. Eventually, near the north-west corner, they come upon the main graveyards and Dirgen's shrine. There is a cabin, two pavilions before the cemetery. Mischief presses his forehead against Peter's shoulder for as long as it takes them to pass it.

Peter breathes. Wonders. Says nothing.

His shoulder feels half-feverish for the rest of their admittedly short walk. They are awash in sea-foam and ancient, derelict tombs full of soaked literature, the lavender no less than eight breezes away.

A long, squat, yellow brick building is where their journey ends. It is one storey high, with four plain off-blue doors and twice as many wide square windows. To the right of each door is a tall urn brimming with moon hallowed sand. At the second door, Kali stops, buries her hand in the sleek-cool grain, and comes away with a fistful. She kisses the shifting particles, blows half of them into the air for blessed mother moon, dashes the rest to the earth for fair-hearted Dirgen, and stomps on it for the forever enduring Paleadnysa. Peter follows her example.

She opens the door for him. No locks here, why would there be?

Pale wooden floors, mellow peach painted walls, floor-low sofas and large overstuffed pillows surrounding a small, round, tea-laden table. There are shelves lining the higher portions of the walls heavy with thick, age-weathered books. Soft sunlight slants angelic through the white cotton curtains. To the left of it all, an open kitchen littered with a fair too many potted plants, all of which are well cared for. A pantry door snuggled up next to the hallway's entry arch.

It's been aired out, so the only scents living here during his stay will be Kali's (she is the Alpha of this land, her scent permeates _everything)_ and his own.

Neither the plants nor the books seem a _new_ addition, and Peter wonders if he's gotten the best-kept visitors' apartments, or if Kali has been preparing this for as long as she's been expecting him.

These aren't the apartments he stayed in last time he'd sojourned here. They cut a distinctly more cheerful, hearth-like impression, and they're much closer to the graveyards.

Where Kali's respected ancestors' rest, where Dirgen watches over them and is offered his sacrifices, paid his due respect.

An awed trickle of warmth begins falling delicately upon Peter's heart, pooling there with every heartbeat, sweetening the blood in his veins to sap.

Kali twirls around theatrically, arms spread wide, "You like it?"

"Yes," he says, flush with honesty. "Thank you, Kali, it's wonderful."

"It's yours," she tells him.

He blinks at her. "I—. Come again?"

She grins, loamy eyes full-up on mirth. "It's _yours,_ idiot. You're my kid brother's packmate-" Mischief makes a noise, indecipherable- "of _course_ you have a place here, whenever you have want (or _need)_ of it. I am not your Alpha, Left Hand Hale, but I know you, and pieces of my Pack are pieces of yours. So... welcome home," she flicks her fingers out, "for a version of home."

Peter knows that Ennis has a permanent residence here, though he utilizes it little. But, then, Ennis and Kali have a very peculiar relationship for two Alphas. They would die and kill for each other without a second's thought, and if either of them were ever in straits, the other would gladly step in. So long as one of them is alive, _both_ of their Packs are safe and secure.

Tradition dictates that their relationship is impossible, and yet.

Kali has given other foreign Pack members residences before, the families of those that marry in and the like. But their apartments are much closer to Kali's, to people with vigilance as their eternal watchword.

 _These_ apartments, however, are both the Gate and the main graveyard's intimate neighbour. The consummate glut of privacy and freedom.

Peter says the only possible thing he _can_ say. "I am honoured, Alpha Giliberto. And," he lilts up into teasing, "perhaps, a bit flattered."

She wrinkles her nose, "If you get a big head over this, I am gonna _pop_ it. Like a Gods damned balloon."

"I've no doubt," Peter says, grinning impish.

 _"Ugh,"_ she says, "It's only been thirty seconds and I'm already regretting this." She leaves them soon, after some more bitchy small-talk and a question as to whether or not he wants any help getting settled in, to which the answer is _no, thank you._ She gives him that same sharp, assessing look from before, then hums around a smile, and glides right out the door.

He and Mischief are alone.

The scent of seas and lavender and libraries is probably sinking into his furniture faster than mountain-statues and moss and fog; certainly faster than ink and glass and parchment.

Peter's wolf _purrs._

"I've been talking to Laura about your tree—" he commences, as soon as Kali's out of hearing range, because he is strangely _excited_ to share this news. It is _good_ news.

Mischief, who has wandered from his sleeve, from his side, to run his fingers curiously along the spines of Peter's new books, startles. _"My_ tree?" he asks, turning.

"Well," Peter says, "it is yours, isn't it?"

It _feels_ like his. In a manner of speaking. In the way that Mischief's hair caught in the wind smacks of power-laden branches or roots.

The purely Hale thing in the back of Peter's head baulks, because shouldn't it be his _Pack's?_

Then: a vision, like a flash of lightning in a cloudless sky, of Talia's sunken, immutable face. Her rage, her immaturity, her spite.

No, Peter decides. Not at all. Theirs to protect, but no more. They'd lost that right. _She'd_ lost that right _for_ them. (And the struggle not to hate her gets ever-harder.)

Mischief is staring at him. His fingers twitch at his sides. His scent wavers. "... Maybe," he murmurs, breathless.

Peter smiles, vaguely rueful. Settles his hands in his pockets, lets his sight-line drift down. The floor's wood panels seem somewhere between tea-stained and sunflower-dusted.

The world is arrested in their hush. Or else, this room is, and that is world enough.

("In another life—")

He isn't the person he was in those dreams. That horrifying creature immersed in darkness and vengeance and grief.

Is Mischief ~~(Stiles)~~ the same? _Who_ is he?

The too clever, too ruthless, too adult little boy that Peter left back in Beacon Hills? The chased, rushing, grimly determined kid who would've done anything—

("It's not about them. It can't be, not anymore. The whole fucking _world_ is ending, Peter. What, do you want me to just lie down and let it?")

everything—

("Well, _fuck_ that.")

_except—_

("I can't lose you, too.")

... Or is he the endearing dumbass who gets so caught up in his own head that he needs to be reminded to _grieve,_ to text, to slow down, to visit, to _not die while he's running around like an utterly **insane** person, please?_ The wild card who defies the laws of magic and custom for the sake of peace and devotion? The one constantly forgetting that he's not alone? The one who held him while he was feral, who _flew_ to him while he was still dripping crimson from the gashes that _Peter_ had given? Whose packbond had reached out like an aching, pleading prayer that knew it was going to be rejected and didn't _care?_

Is he more?

Hunger wells up within Peter's soul, a hyper, panting thing. Hunger to scratch at the skein of that question, to dig and to bite and to _know._

For a moment he wants so savagely that he almost despairs.

He gives himself a quiet, _firm_ inward shake.

"Talia's sentence has been lifted," he says into the thickened atmosphere. His voice comes out remarkably steady. "You have Laura's blessing - you have my whole Pack's blessing - to restore the Nemeton."

_There._

The words ring with the deliverance of freedom.

An unnoticed weight lifted as sweetly as a sigh.

"I do?" Mischief asks, faint.

"Yes," Peter tells him, drenched in conviction. "You do."

A laugh rattles through Mischief's teeth, twisted ever so slightly hysterical at the edges. His head falls back, and Peter traces the column of his throat up to his gas mask. Counts eleven freckles. Is mildly fascinated by how the skin pinks, colour coming in little pastel pin-pricks before overwhelming the ivory in a flood.

 _"Cool,"_ Mischief manages, still laughing.

It both is and isn't an echo. The same word said by the same mouth, worlds and bodies and hearts apart.

"Cool?" Peter asks, curious or luring.

Mischief only looks at him, bright and stunningly open. "Sure. It is still spring, after all."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (kali totally ships them)
> 
> up next: Lusagaria for real this time, lol
> 
> _soulhugs_


	46. Peter Hale (Part IV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i swear to heck i keep meaning to get to lusagaria, but i got, like, hijacked by julia's freaking protective instincts, lol
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Harsh/Vivid Mention of Torture (which is honestly, and strangely, fluffier than it sounds, i promise)

Peter and Mischief part ways before the festival. Of course they do, they each have their own obligations, preparations; a ways to go even in this.

It is not an eager parting, nor is it a solemn one. They both simply know that they must leave each other in order to get on with it, for all that neither one wishes to leave.

Peter gathers up his travel gear from his car and moves it into his new apartment before seeking out Ramaah and Dante for a bit of barter and trade. Bonfires are being built in the courtyards, in the crossroads. Those preferred animals are being brought to their sacrificial beds, whilst that which is already meat is being slow-roasted. Talk and laughter is alive everywhere, a dizzying spin of it rushing throughout the compound.

Three sisters dressed in black muslin robes are washing the main pathways, the anointed clay-water such a deep red it nearly resembles blood. These three do not speak, do not make any sound at all. Tomorrow, they will be vessels for the three-fold, and any one person will be able to ask them three questions, exactly, each, but today they are _silence_ and _duty_ and _respect._ So, whatever deference might be given them tonight is and must be mute.

Roscoe attaches himself to their station like a moth to a flame, licking their bare faces and whuffing at their bare feet and loping in vigilant circles around them, as irreverent and reverent as can be. He draws a crowd of children with him. Peter has never seen the vessels of the three-fold amidst this much company on the eve of Lusagaria before, has never seen them beaming like joy-hounded pups before.

Peter bows solemnly to the sisters as he passes them by, gives the children a knowing, impish glance, and smooths his hand over Roscoe's velvety head. _"Good dog,"_ he says.

Roscoe yawns a gummy bark at him that sounds nothing like a bark. Rather, like a very creaky car door being slammed shut. _Blue jeep,_ hits Peter's neurons so vividly he has to blink past the stun of it.

Your master, Peter thinks down at Roscoe with a particular kind of fervency, is so, so, incredibly awful at being subtle, isn't he?

Roscoe ducks away from Peter's petting to stick his big wet nose directly into the hollow if Peter's palm. He blows a hot wet breath that makes Peter scowl half-heartedly, leans back with a giant's dopey grin, and dances off.

Peter pulls out his handkerchief to wipe clean his hand and huffs a mild laugh.

Should've expected that, really.

* * *

Peter sleeps on the bed Kali's provided for him, softer and cosier than any mattress he'd ever think to own himself. _Made_ , he knows, by the hands of those that live here, as everything within the compound is.

Some of the oldest buildings in the compound were constructed centuries ago by Hades himself, the first Giliberto Alpha to claim this land, christened like all those after him with the name of a someways-destructive someways-not God. He doesn't understand the nature of that particular namesake ritual, though he is sure he has asked.

Kali has never answered him.

Peter spends the night in strange dreams. He wouldn't call them nightmares, for he wakes well-rested and content enough, but there is death in them. Grief, maybe. Long journeys and atonement. A massless white room that isn't a room at all, and a mirror reflection so brimming with rage that the emotion echoes out all around him. If words are traded, Peter can't remember them.

Mornings at the Giliberto compound always seem such a strange thing.

The people here do not keep any set schedule: they have no need of it, that is a civilian way, not a _wolf's._ And the Gilibertos are all wolf. Civilian norms bear little significance here.

Sleep is sacred. You do not wake the sleeping for anything short of life and death. While you are awake, you do what your Pack needs of you, and what you like, what you have the affinity for.

But there are so many people, each with unique internal clocks. There is never a second where there isn't at least _one_ person awake.

(Kali's Howlers are the only exception to this culture of time-keeping, but their stricter regiments and rotations are _awing_ to the others. They are of a different calibre for it, and regarded as such.)

Mornings at home are chaotic because they are the start to _everybody's_ day. Here, where there is more room to breathe despite the fact that there are, actually, fewer people, it's mellow-sweet. For some, this is their last meal before sleeping, for others, it is more akin to lunch, for a handful, they've just woken up.

Food is cooked by Nunna's kindred, and brought out to the courtyard for those that are hungry. In an hour or two, when this food is gone, more will be churned out for a different group of bellies to attend.

Peter can see the creche from where he sits, at a wooden table on a well-cushioned bench with piles of steaming food placed in front of him. Children ring the heart-spring, tailors and housekeepers scattered about them, keeping an eye out, allowing them their freedom.

Birds sing, up high.

Julia takes a seat beside him, after paying homage to the Gods, smiling small. "You're up early."

"Am I?" He's awake later than normal, truth told.

Alarms are forbidden here. Sleep, again, is _sacred._

It is a strange thing.

She shrugs a slender shoulder. Then, abruptly: "You know, when I first met Mischief he looked at me like he was surprised I wasn't holding a knife to his throat." Peter stares at her. Her gaze is directed unobtrusively toward the creche. Her expression holds nothing that Peter should want to shy away from. "I think I reminded him of someone. I think I still do, sometimes. When I'm not careful."

Peter remembers his Siren-song nightmares. He remembers, hazily, standing in front of his own nephew's death-plot and feeling... _unsatisfied,_ more than anything. Enraged. A shallow, griefless, maddened fury. And: Mischief-Stiles, foreheads pressed together, disgust.

That boy loved that man despite— despite _everything,_ didn't he?

(He did.)

Who had Julia been, in that other world, in that other timeline? What sins had _she_ committed? What sins has she been saved from committing? Thoughtlessly. Wordlessly. Unconditionally. 

With what ache has her new destiny been brought to fore?

With what ache has his?

"And just how careful _are_ you, Lady?" Peter asks, a wry hush of a thing. Julia's presence always manages to inspire the Shakespearian in him.

(Nevermind that she is, factually, nobility, albeit faraway and obscure and orphaned. She could never return to her blood-family, anyway, being what she is. Being _how_ she is.

Julia, abandon Kali? Not for all the lineage, legacy, and fortune in this Gods' blessed world.)

Julia's eyes are the rapids-hardened rocks found at the bottom of the river, all ruddy russet, sun-washed clarity. "He's my little brother," she says, cut squarely between absolute conviction and sheer bloody-mindedness. "I'm exactly as careful as I need to be."

Peter's lips quirk. "I'd expect no less."

"He's never looked at you like that," Julia tells him a moment later. She'd waited until after he'd taken a bite to catch him off guard with his mouth full, damn her. He gives her a mild glare. She gives him an even milder smile. "He is wary in that way," she says, "with _most_ people. With Kali. For a very, very long time. With Ennis. With me. But whenever he's with you, or even just _talking_ about you, he's—" she frowns, harsh and sudden and inexplicably terrifying. "Easy," she decides, as if that's not quite the right sentiment and she _knows it_ , but this word's the only one that will do.

Peter swallows his food, drinks down half his cup of tea, exhales. "Your point?" he asks, quiet under birdsong and beloved children getting underfoot.

"My point," Julia murmurs, an eery chill lining her tone, "is that if I ever see him looking at _you_ like he's expecting a knife to his throat and is astounded that he's not getting one, I will tie you up with mountain ash and wolfsbane; I will flay you, slowly (and you'll live through that, I promise); then I will starve you and _feed you to yourself,_ before I kill you and feed you to the _maggots._ Do you understand me, Peter Hale?"

"Yes," Peter breathes. "Yes, I understand you perfectly."

She grins at him, sunnily, as if he's honestly adorable and she's only just figured it out. "Good. Enjoy the rest of your meal."

And with that, she quits him.

Peter stares out at nothing. _Huh._

Then he laughs, overcome by a sudden rush of affection: oh, _well done,_ Julia, he thinks, effervescent. Well done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kali: eh, it's pretty obvious you two like each other, so, like, @mischief: get yo happy boo  
> julia, seething with all the protectiveness of a thousand suns: *gives peter ridiculous left hand hale the shovel talk*  
> peter ridiculous left hand hale: oooh, good job, couldn't have done it better if i'd trained you 😘
> 
> peter... i think you're missing the point, lol
> 
> next up: _actually lusagaria i swear even if it kills me omg_


	47. Lusagaria (Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: lusagaria next chapter!!  
> everyone: _side-eyeing the last four thousand or so times the author has gotten sidetracked_ uh-huuhhhh  
> me: no for real  
> my writer's block: lolololol, uh-huhhhh  
> me: god _damnit_  
>  [on being a week late, oops, sorry T^T ]
> 
> lol,, HAPPY THANKSGIVING READERS!!!!!!! THE BIGGEST FREAKING SOULHUG FROM ME TO YOU!!!!!!! STAY SAFE, WASH YOUR HANDS, EAT WELL, I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> #blacklivesmatter #translivesmatter #kudosforkindness

It starts, as most wolven things do, with a _howl._

Hurled from Kali's open-tilted throat to the heavens above. To the Gods above.

And, oh, how that cavernous firmament soaks up her deep-bellied call. Every packmate (except, perhaps, the sleeping) answers it. The air becomes all a-chant, ululating and tremendous.

Then Kali speaks. She is standing on the steel roof of the creche, flanked by her council. Her voice does not cause quiet so much as _hush._ The wolven song remains, rippling and crooning like the lush lullaby of a faraway seatide, a shivering undercurrent to her every word.

"Today marks the end of Spring and the beginning of Summer. We have outlasted the careful tending of renewal, we have seen ourselves through to the afterbirth of cultivation. Pride," she says, and the song gets louder, a cheer commencing beneath it, "does not encompass what I feel for all that we have already accomplished this year! Soon, it will be Autumn, and there will be death, again. We will mourn, again. But _now!"_ she cries out, and they all cry out with her, buoyed by the giddy rush. "Now," she says, "there is _life._ Let us savour it! Let us celebrate it! Let Lusagaria," she Beta-shifts with easy and triumphant grace, throws clawed hands high above her head, "begin!"

As cliché as it is to think, the crowd does indeed go wild.

Peter can't stop the grin that spills across his face; can't stop his heart cracking wide open, too full to measure. His own Pack is singing, too, he can feel the thrum of it in his veins, nestling against the roof of his mouth. Even Mischief's packbond vibrates the rhythm of a rainbow.

Kali leaps down, curls her body into a somersault. Lands in a half-kneeled crouch, lower knuckles pressed against the hard red clay. Her hair falls feathery and handsome around her shoulders. Still in her animal and so obviously relishing it.

She lifts her chin up to the sky once more, fills her lungs, and _howls._

Peter's soul is a billowing cacophony that demands he release his own sentiment, rapture, _song._ So he does.

And there is a striking— unity. An endless, blessed unity.

Here we are.

_Alive._

(The scent of ink and parchment and glass seeps through everything. Kali's territory, Kali's Pack, Kali's sillage.

A strange homesickness rolls through him, despite everything.)

* * *

Peter is people-watching in the eastern courtyard when the little girl Kanima finds him.

He'd already done most of his bartering - on behalf of his Pack, on behalf of the trade-route - with Ramaah and Dante yesterday, but the bartering that springs forth from Lusagaria is much less _politic_ than all that. Here, it is one part game, one part talent show, one part pack-career requisition.

There is a table mantled by hanging tapestries and covered in propped up horror-fantasy paintings, its' neighbour a veritable mini-forest of books manned by a bored-looking teen and their exasperated mother. Another table is all strange candy experiments and herbs. Peter is stalled in front of Mitya's exhibition, full of elegantly sculpted dishware and an assortment tea-blends that Ben-J would probably lose his mind over.

He smells her before he hears her: something scaly and slithering underneath the heaviest perfumes of libraries, bakeries, and ink thick enough to swim in. She carries Mischief on her skin. Peter is honestly surprised that that's all it takes to set him at ease, especially since she's obviously trying to sneak up on him.

Peter thinks fondly back on the times when Derek was still young and clumsy enough to catch, slinking through his shadows, dodging sight-lines. At least _he_ was clever enough not to _snicker_ while he was doing it.

Peter hums thoughtfully over a set of raspberry-hued bowls covered in intricate whale-themed designs, lets her get just close enough, then leaps on a spin and catches her by the scruff of her collar.

"Aw, _man,"_ she says, but she's laughing, bright and sweet.

"Elodie," Mitya sighs, pinching his eyes as if he's got a headache coming on, "what are you doing? _Why_ are you causing trouble so early? And with—" Mitya flicks a half-wary look at Peter. Does not finish that thought.

Peter smirks, not entirely unkindly. He is an unknown variable here, Kali's almost-friend at best, a foreign dignitary at worst. It makes sense for them to be suspicious of him, but it's not as if he's going to throw a hissy fit over the antics of a _child._

If nothing else, he is much too decorous for that.

The girl, Elodie, twists around in his gentle grasp, dark brown eyes vivid with excited purpose, "Kiki-mama said she needed you, an' Mimi was gonna get Roscoe to come, but I said I wanted to do it! I have a really good nose, you know. You smell like _mountains._ Thomas kind of does, too, but not the same way. I found you so super easy, but you _caught_ me."

"So it seems," Peter agrees mildly.

She doesn't pout about it. She actually seems delighted, grinning wide. "Maybe you won't next time, though!"

Peter makes a neutral sound, letting her go, and she bops in place, too energized for even the smallest stillness. He tries to bite back his smile and very likely fails.

"Kiki-mama?" he asks, helplessly soft.

"Alpha!" she chirps, and twirls so that her lizard-kin tail, skirts, and flower-laden braids all float around her. The pale green scales climbing up her cheeks do nothing to hide her dimples, and her claw-tipped fingers give her no pause whatsoever in tugging at his sleeve. "Follow me, okay?"

Peter pretends to dither, wanting to see how she will react.

"If you don't," she says, very seriously, "Mimi will cry."

Mitya chokes and covers his face, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.

"Mimi?" Peter inquires, arching an eyebrow.

Elodie flutters her eyelashes. _"Mischief,"_ she says, as if imparting a great secret.

Conniving little imp, rings sharply all throughout him, reverberates in the hollows of his bones.

"Ah," he says, and her expression shines like someone's just plucked the sun right out of the sky and plopped it directly into her tiny, bird-boned body. _Heaven's sake._ Peter slides his sleeve out of her grip and folds his palm over hers, admitting defeat with some irony. "Wouldn't want that, now would we?"

She's grinning again, a half-moon full of small, sharp teeth. "Nope!"

Mitya is no longer laughing. He's looking back and forth between them with a kind of surprised revelation blooming in his face.

"Set aside some tea for me, would you?" Peter tells him.

Lips parted on a checked gasp, Mitya nods dumbly.

Peter smirks again, much less kind, and allows Elodie to lead the way.

* * *

Kali's apartments are a harried crush of breathlessly beaming people, some carrying flowers and costume-pieces, some practising movements or lines with each other, the rest helping whoever they can however they can.

Kali is in her ballet room, sitting on the floor with a heavy wolf pelt over her shoulders, hair flowing long in ribbons and flowers under a wolf-skull crown. Her gown is dark, sleek, and layered; obviously made for the ease of movement rather than style, yet striking all the same. An odd thing to see her in, considering she's much more inclined to form-hugging yoga pants and snug sleeveless shirts. But, then, she will not be _herself_ tonight, will she?

James is in front of her, painting her claws, Mathilda is beside him fussing with Kali's dress, Mischief is across the room braiding Nunna's hair. Half of Kali's council is spread out amongst the debris of props and set-pieces and hastily written notes. Everyone's scents are seeping together, blending and weaving, reaching a crescendo the closer they get to Kali.

"I brought him, I brought him!" Elodie exclaims, hand still planted firmly in his.

"Good job, honey," Nunna says, and although her voice is forever a harshed out husky thing, her tone is as tender as Peter's ever heard it. Mischief looks at him over Nunna's head, sunset eyes sparkling.

"You're the best, ladybug," Kali gushes, completely sincere, and Elodie finally lets go of him to do a little jig. Nunna chuckles softly, reaching to tuck her adopted daughter into her warm embrace. Kali makes a rising movement and is immediately growled and cursed at by James and Mathilda respectively. She heaves a sigh.

"Get the hell over here, Peter."

Peter raises an eyebrow. Pads over to her.

She urges him to crouch down into her space without saying a word or further annoying her attendants. Then, shockingly, she scents the everliving _fuck_ out of him.

She gives a satisfied huff when she's done, irises heavily haemorrhaging.

Peter just _stares_ at her.

That kind of— intimacy, is reserved for packmates.

Especially, _especially,_ in the throes of Lusagaria, preparing for a role that demands—

A role that demands you be soaked in the scents of your closest. Your _very_ closest.

Peter swallows, hard. "Kali..."

"Shut up," she says cheerfully. Her features are so uncharacteristically soft, girlish, _free._ "Go see if Mischief needs anything, huh?"

"Yeah," Peter murmurs. "Alright." He bends to press a kiss to her forehead, allows the _meaning_ of that to make its home within his chest. "Break a leg, your highness."

Kali barks a sharp, startled laugh that ripples out through everyone around her, makes them shiver with the wave of heart-aching mirth that washes over them.

She is not his Alpha, she _never_ will be. But there is the possibility of a packbond wrapped tight around his rib. Waiting. Hungry. And maybe—

Maybe someday he will feed it.

(It should be impossible. It breaks every rule, every single understanding of their natural laws.

Nevertheless—

Peter's wolf _sings.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inter-pack bonding for the fucking _win,_ folks
> 
> also, i know there wasn't much mischief/steter in this but there should be a lot more in the next chapter
> 
> also, also, i seriously love all your faces, xoxoxoxoxo, _soulhugs~_


	48. Lusagaria (Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **is very sorry for being a week late, the author continues to try their best, lol
> 
> ALSO: holy crap, guys, over 4k kudos, 1k bookmarks, 2k comments (i seriously need to get better at replying but i swear on my life i read every one and they all feed my pathetic fannish soul, y'all are beyond the best i can't even), _100k words_ — just, hhhhhhhh, hoo. writing this fic is a trip. i mean, a good trip, but i can't believe how much love and support it's gotten! i can't believe that it's still got a _ways_ to go before it's over. anybody remember that first chapter's note? i thought i'd finish this _quickly_. ha! lol, catch me laughing hysterically at my past self. but you guys, you _guys_ , i love you all so much, okay? i love you.
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Mischief has PTSD, (something kind of akin to) Aquaphobia(ish) and Pyrophobia(ish), Implied/Referenced Bigotry & Prejudice, Implied/Referenced Apocalypse, Implied/Referenced Touch-Aversion, Intense Emotions

Mischief was never a theatre kid. Never really had the _chance_ to be.

Too busied by circumstance. By life.

But the first night of Lusagaria is dedicated to a performance unlike any other. He doesn't think not having much of a reference matters. He thinks that even if he _were_ used to actors rehearsing lines and stories being played out on a grand stage, he'd be awed. Overwhelmed.

Kali is playing the part of Paleadnysa, who bears the moon on Their shoulders. Julia is playing the part of the moon. This is tradition. They are not allowed to meet as they prepare, only after the play begins. The Alpha must be drenched in the scent of their _closest._ The Emissary must ask three, exactly, that they trust with their life and their Pack and their soul for an ivory-hued boon.

Kali gave Julia a baby's breath corsage. Mischief gave her a moonstone ring. Nunna gave her a silk headband.

She is wearing all this and a white cotton sundress, hair dripping wire-wound crystals, when she greets Kali as the moon to her God. They are at the end of the main and widest road, farthest from the mouth of the Gate, though the Gate's ribbon-laden chain-link walls rise high behind them.

Julia kneels before Kali. Head held proudly high, baring her throat in perfect submission. Solemnly, Kali bends in a low bow, gently pressing their foreheads together, clasping Julia's upper arms, bidding her wordlessly to rise. They remain kiss-close for a moment, foreheads joined, gazes holding steady. Then Julia sucks in a sharp breath and lifts her left knee. Kali sways back, curls a clawed hand around the sole of Julia's foot, draws no blood.

Julia braces her hands on Kali's shoulders. Her glance is all raw faith as she pushes her right foot off the ground. Kali does not struggle underneath her weight, is a steady, unmovable stone. This foot lands almost daintily on Kali's shoulder. Julia grins down at the one holding her up in breathless transcendence. Kali huffs a helpless laugh. Julia's eyes _sparkle._

She pivots out of Kali's hand, a small-hopping spin that lands her standing with both feet on Kali's left shoulder. Her body is held in a tight point of precarious balance.

Standing in a U around the divine pair, watching their dance, are maybe three dozen packmates. Mischief is leaning against the Gate's fencing, surrounded by Nunna, Kizzy, Lee, and Peter.

Julia beams at them. Twists in a startling, snake-like move that makes Mischief reach for his mountain ash and worry tremendously about heads cracking on cement-hardened clay. But Julia does not fall, she descends with agile grace in a strange crouch on Kali's shoulders.

She looks almost comfortable, somehow.

Mischief releases a breath.

Catches Peter smirking at him half-fondly out of the corner of his eye.

Pinches Peter's elbow because he is an _ass_ , and he totally deserves it.

Is, again (always), stunned by the deep affection that swirls through their packbond, by the wonder-tenderness-consideration that crests in the packbonds of all those near enough to witness their closeness.

(When Peter had first arrived, and Mischief had _flown to him,_ every single annexe of his soul had gone off like a goddamn _firework.)_

He hadn't been able to yesterday, having fatigued himself pretty spectacularly with his welcome _(worth it),_ but now he lets his hand fall from Peter's elbow to his wrist. Taps his fingertips against the breadth of Peter's palm.

Peter's presence beside him is a pillar of familiar warmth. It settles some cold, crushed animal thing in the depths of his belly. Mischief, when he was still Stiles, fell in love with Peter Hale because he _understood_ him, as one understands gravity:

There was a man, or a monster, and he was going to eat the life of the ones who had burned his family. He was going to chew on their marrow. He was going to smile the gore-splattered smile of the righteous. Damn anyone who got in his way.

And Stiles was going to get in his way.

Stiles saw him. Saw into the deep, universe-gulping, black hole depths of him. Loved him despite, or because, or through. Just fucking loved.

Then— then— _then_ —

There is a man, a ridiculous man. Who cried for him. Who _held_ him. Who is still sly and cunning and ambitious. Who is still protective to blood. Who is, above all that, an uncle, a father, and a brother. Who is... kind.

("He tried to arrest me!" Mommy laughs, swatting Daddy's shoulder, "I yelled at him for a good hour and a half; heaven's sake, handcuffing me for stealing _my own_ purse back from the purse-snatcher! But he spent three weeks trying to apologize, and after a while, I started to think: this one's one of the good ones, isn't he?" She winks at her son over her shoulder, "It was all downhill from there, kiddo.")

(Earlier, as a soft-faced Peter was led into Kali's ballet room by a triumphant Elodie, it had whirled through him: _this one's one of the good ones, isn't he?)_

Mischief's heart pounds in his chest, in his ears. It is the pounding of children's feet as they rush headlong-reckless into an adventure that won't get them hurt or killed, won't even share a sideways glance with sad.

"You'll let go," Mischief begins, tests—

"The _second_ you need me to, darling," Peter intones lowly, heavy with such meaning and promise that Mischief's blood _trembles._

"Yeah," he breathes, and twines their fingers together — five weaving through five. The whole world slots itself more firmly into place. Mischief almost laughs.

* * *

Kali carries Julia to the heart-spring creche.

In a perfect circle around the two women, six children dance (Elodie is one of them). Three of these children are _torchbearers,_ swinging balls of fire at the end of ropes, turning little molten-orange globes of light into dancers all their own (Elodie is _not_ one of them).

Mischief trails after the procession, three paces behind the rest of their audience. He's seen the kids practice enough that he knows nobody's in danger of getting burned, but the flames still make him twitch.

(It is always, always _fire,_ isn't it?)

Peter keeps to his side, their hands delicately clasped.

There are three creches in the compound. The _heart-spring creche_ is termed that not only for its clear water reservoir, but also for its position in the exact centre of the compound. It is the core and heart of the place. The main road unravels horizontally in front of it, west to east. On its eastern side, the council's quarters, guest pavilions, and emptied buildings not currently in use. On its western side, the main courtyard, Kali's quarters, Julia's apartments, Kyrie's Hold, and the Gate's opening.

Tonight, four companies tell two different tales. The tale that they're following will merge with The March of the Vargr's at the heart-spring and spill into the one about the first werewolves from there.

(Of course, the wolves playing the 'vargr' in this case will only be _acting_ the part. Mischief half-wonders what the true vargr are doing right now. Are they attempting to celebrate what they believe to be a _heathen's festival?_ Do they continue to hope for forgiveness? Do they fret over their dead? Do they stray further?

— Draw closer?)

Mischief doesn't know much about the second story. It has to do with Dirgen, he's pretty sure. Mathilda and James left shortly after Kali was satisfactorily prepared to partake in it.

From what he's heard, Kali and Julia's parts in this aren't as quote-and-unquote _exciting_ as the others'. Read: there's no real action beyond the solemnity of ritual. But Mischief basks in the quietude, in his Alpha and Emissary's ample devotion for each other, for their Pack.

The packbonds swell within him until they're dizzying: riverbanks soaked in rainstorm torrents, pregnant, sopping up the giddy exuberance of a thousand or more hearts thrown like liberated birds up into the sky to beat there as wings do, all sap-raw muscle. And the clouds are pink-tinged, sunset sweetened things, that bleed a tenderness so passionate it borders on violent. _Pack,_ surges through his veins, _we are Pack. We love. Oh, we love, we love, we **love.**_

Stiles had been without this for so _long._

Mischief has it, now, new and different. Still, it bewilders him. Frightens him. It is not an unhappy fear, and isn't that just the weirdest thing? _Joyful_ terror.

"Breathe," Peter murmurs.

Mischief inhales a gasp, lungs greedy. Says feebly, "I'm fine." He used to be such a good liar. His eyes flit to Peter's, see the affectionate exasperation and wealth of concern there.

"No, my darling, you are not. But you're very cute."

Mischief stumbles to a halt to stare at him. _"Cute?"_

Peter smirks, somewhere between strained and mirthful. Squeezes his hand. "Adorable. Keep breathing."

Mischief keeps breathing. Starts walking again, watching Elodie dance through the crowd, watching Kali carry Julia ever-forward. "I told you— what happened to my Pack. Before."

"Yes," Peter says, hushed.

"I never thought I'd have Pack again. And I'm glad that I _do._ I really, really am." Mischief sighs, heavy. "It's just _a lot_ , when I've been resigned to... nothing."

Peter hums, sways closer. "For over ten years, I was the only— soul-scarred—"

"That is a shitty and extremely inaccurate slur, Peter Hale," Mischief says fiercely, loathing those words in his mouth, in _anybody's_ mouth.

Peter shoots him a sideways smile, slow-curling and brief, "Nevertheless, that is how most of my Pack saw me. And it was much more advantageous for those who _didn't_ see me that way to pretend that they did. Derek and Laura were, often, the only exceptions. Then Laura claimed the Alpha-spark. I went from receiving scraps to _drowning in a flood_ overnight." He shakes his head slightly, "I'd known an Alpha's bond could overshadow... I'd just never realized how _much."_

Mischief wraps his free hand around the crook of Peter's arm, presses himself hard into Peter's side. Ignores, as much as he can, the lance of guilt that pierces his sternum over not realizing how Talia fit into the puzzle sooner.

Peter exhales just this side of harsh. Every point of contact is slow-burning magma, a sweet-ache sizzle. Their packbond is _blooming._ Peter smells like dry tea and pine needles, like soap. Clean.

"I love Laura," Peter says, with intimate softness. "I am so _proud_ of her. She's a good Alpha." He chuckles, thunderous deep, and Mischief shivers a little. _"My_ Alpha. But I've never really known so much... warmth, before. I must confess that I am sometimes torn between wanting to revel in it and wanting to hide."

Mischief doesn't know much about Laura, but, "Derek would never let you hide."

"No," Peter agrees, his whole goddamn soul pouring out of him with that fucking smile, _Jesus Christ,_ who knew anybody could smile like that? "He wouldn't. Just as I would never let him."

The six little ones circling Julia and Kali began to sing in an ancient, long-forgotten tongue. There are aspects of it that seem Arabic, or French, or Old Norse. There are aspects of it that are _inhuman:_ growls and yips and subvocal chitters. This is a wolven language. A werewolf's song.

Ahead, Mischief can see the heart-spring creche's silhouette, can hear the approach of an answering melody from the play-acting vargr.

Mischief whispers, "I need to hide a lot. Think I'd freak if anyone tried to stop me."

Peter shifts, a small movement of his body that somehow makes him seem bigger, broad-shouldered and looming: shelter personified. Mischief rests his cheek on Peter's shoulder with a tiny sigh.

Kali carries Julia into the creche, climbs up onto the lip of the heart-spring. The three kids not playing with fire sit down at the northern, southwestern, and southeastern sides of the well, still singing. The other three weave around the well with their torches, voices gone purely guttural, growling.

Julia slips off of Kali's shoulders, into her arms, and the two of them embrace near-bruisingly. They separate enough to regard each other, Julia's feet dangling languidly over the water.

The dance becomes more intense, chaotic, fraught.

The song, and its vargr-driven echo, gets louder, discordant, _frantic._

Julia tilts her chin up to kiss Kali's right eyelid, her left, the middle of her forehead.

Kali ducks down to bite Julia's throat. She's Beta-shifted, but the act is done so, _so_ gently. Julia's eyes flutter shut, her face an agony of bliss as she is held in Kali's fangs.

Then Kali draws away. Julia inhales deeply. Kali lets her go. She drops into the well, the heart-spring, the glittering limpid water.

"Looks like we're not alone," Peter whispers, light. "Even the moon needs to hide, sometimes."

Mischief bites back a chuckle and shares a glinting look with him. "So every sunrise is a show of camaraderie?"

Peter smiles indulgently. "Something like that."

Kali prowls around the rim of the well. Julia does not resurface.

Mischief, who grudgingly accepts that he's been living in Julia's apartments for months now, had seen her practising for this firsthand. "It's like meditation," she'd said, after holding her breath underwater for nearly _ten minutes straight._

"Fuck off," Mischief had replied, stressed. Watching loved ones willingly drown themselves is almost never a good experience for him. He'd fluttered his fingers (ten, ten, ten) over her pulse and checked her twice-over for possession. "You're okay, though? Really?"

"Yes," she'd promised, smiling though her eyes were sad. "Really, really. I've been doing this since I was _five."_

She could have worse hobbies. Probably. Mischief still has to hang onto Peter very tightly and grit his teeth to keep himself from diving into the well after her. He's putting her in a runic circle as soon as this is done and cleansing her to kingdom fucking come.

The vargr's increasingly frenzied voices draw closer. Kali kneels down to croon at the water.

The walls of the well are clay and stone, and the thing runs _deep._ There's a flat ring of stone under the water, a floor that the kids can use to climb in or out, or simply to play as if the heart-spring were any pool. Kali once let slip that the only person in five generations who's even been able to get _close_ to the bottom was Julia.

Admirable. Migraine inducing, but admirable.

He wonders, a little fretfully (actually, no, fuck it— a _lot_ fretfully), if she's endeavouring a similar escapade at present. But Kali croons, and Julia rises like a nymph from the sea to be pulled once more into her Alpha's arms.

Kali twirls her. Julia laughs, throaty and half-gasping. Mischief feels all of his bones melt at once with pitifully tremendous relief.

"She's alright, darling," Peter says, because of course he knew. _Of course_ he did, Mischief has been practically vibrating into his side this entire time. "Breathe," he reminds him. Again.

Mischief breathes. Thinks hard about ritual cleansings. Stops feeling quite so lightheaded. "Thanks."

"Mmm."

The vargr close in. Loud and animal. Desperate and hungry. Their song promotes a feeling so visceral Mischief shudders under it, a weight he has felt _intimately_ himself: almost alone, the world crumbling to ashes all around him.

Kali _leaps,_ toned legs spread in an aerial split, from the edge of the well closest to the vargr to the edge of the well farthest from them, as if running away. A dripping Julia swings her body up and around, replacing herself on Kali's shoulders. Their expressions are resolute, steady, as they look down upon the vargr.

Rebecca, James' sister, is playing The First Wolf. She wades through her company until she is at its forefront. The singing undulates, coming to a panicky end. The torchbearers around the well spin, slow and hypnotizing. The torchbearers that the vargr brought swing their fires with an almost maddened urgency.

"The moon has spoken to me in dreams," Rebecca says. "She has bid me come here, to you. By this alone, I may know you to be a God. You stand before me, a wolf larger than mountains. By this, too, I know you to be a God. And I see the moon, my spirit's mother, held aloft upon your shoulders, so I begin to understand why She has asked us here."

"Child," Kali says, eyes crimson-bright, fangs sharp-edged and flashing. "They name you vargr, for wolves, for _beasts,_ because you have committed crimes that your villages could not forgive."

"Yes."

"But Mother Moon forgives," Kali says, and Julia rises to stand on her shoulders, stretches her arms high above her head, smiles as she tilts her head back.

 _"Yes,"_ Rebecca agrees, a baptism of peace in her expression.

"She told you: Do not clothe your feet or your head, only keep walking. She told you: Trust in me and yourself, and I will lead you, and you will find the means to survive. She told you all these things. She has given you this path to redemption. You have listened well."

In a liquid flow of movement, all of the vargr bow.

Mischief gazes at their naked feet, at Julia's. He's wondered since the moment he heard the story of the vargr and what they mean— if this was how before-after Kali had seen herself. Before-after Kali had _never_ worn shoes. She'd still had her claws, but she... Did she regret? Did she _hate_ herself for what she had done?

And the twisted, unbound version of Julia, the one who'd named herself _Jennifer_ — she'd been the only survivor of the Alpha Pack's slaughters. Mischief has no doubt that her circumvented death had been on Kali's head.

"She has served us well," the vargr say, as one.

"She seeks to serve you again," Kali says. "And I with Her."

Then Kali (Paleadnysa) offers them a boon or a curse or both. The rainwater in the bottom of Their pawprint. "Drink this," They say, "and you will be exactly what your villagers call you. Animals; beasts; _wolves._ You and your descendants will be on the outskirts of their societies for-ever more. You will be subject to the tides of the moon. You will be subject to the tides of _yourselves."_

The vargr's torchbearers have slowed their dance to something slumberous, transient. "But will we survive?" the fire-dancers ask, their voices chillingly young.

"Oh, yes," Kali says. "I swear, above all else, that my gift will help you survive everything it will force you to endure. Everything _life_ will force you to endure."

"Then," Rebecca says, with great ceremony, "we accept, and we thank you."

As Rebecca moves toward the heart-spring, the six kids ringing it move away, dancing a twirl-skipping dance that splits them up and has them slipping out of either side of the creche. The vargr's torchbearers take up singing again, low and gnarring.

Julia's arms sweep down in an arc to fall at her sides. She angles her chin down to regard the wolf before her.

Dawn seeps gently into the sky.

Rebecca leans over the edge of the well, cups her hands in the water. Brings a cascade of dazzling liquid to her lips. Swallows a mouthful.

 _"Change,"_ Julia hisses, like the lancing point of her own spear. "My Daughter." She sounds so unbearably _loving._ She sounds like she did when she was half-begging Mischief to stay, half-begging him to let them help.

Rebecca shudders all over and Beta-shifts at once. "Mother," she breathes. Her irises are a vivid, blinding blue.

Mischief's eyes sting. "Peter," he says, like the reincarnation of a shiver.

"Would you like me to let go?" is the quiet reply. Which is super fucking sweet, honestly, but—

 _"No,"_ Mischief denies, breath hitching at the prospect. "Don't. Don't."

One by one, the play-acting vargr go up to the well to drink. And Julia tells them, "Change. My son; my daughter; my child. _Change."_ Each one shifts into their wolf, each one with glowing blue eyes. "Mother," they all say, full of gratitude and relief and ferocious pride.

The enormity of their packbonds is almost crushing. Mischief feels as if he has a universe inside of him, billowing, engorged on beloved things.

 _"Peter,"_ he says again, strangled. Wanting.

"I'm here," Peter murmurs, holding his hand so tightly its bones creak. His eyes are like bioluminescent dragonfly wings glancing off of glaciers. "I'm right here, darling; what do you need?"

To grieve, he thinks... To forgive, maybe.

Before-after Kali is more a concept of memory than anything else, now, but he wishes he could've told her that it was going to be okay. Told her that he was going to free her, he was going to _change_ her. If the ghost of her was here with him— standing beside him with Jennifer Blake, their bodies so brutally ravaged by each other. If they could see this. If they could know that their Pack was safe. That they were - are - safe.

The bonds he shares with Kali and Julia contract. He can barely keep his walls from breaking. _Sisters,_ his soul cries, _sisters._

For a second, they both break character to grin at him, rapturous. Their side of the bond unspooling an epic of familial love so vibrant that Mischief huffs out a startled, misty laugh.

The play's last dance begins. It will end with a bonfire, to mark the coming of dawn and renewal. Mischief, who will likely never be able to make his peace with fire, decides that he can miss this part. He spins into Peter's solid warmth, curls an arm up his broad back, and clutches at Peter's shirt between his shoulder blades.

"This," Mischief says into the curve of his neck, mostly uncaring about the clunky awkwardness of his gas mask in this context. "Just— this."

"All right," Peter whispers, enveloping him with the whole of himself, absolutely no hesitation whatsoever. "I've got you, love."

Mischief inhales sharply—

_He's got me._

— hisses out a tremulous exhale.

_He's got me._

"... yeah."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter: empathic packbonds are exceedingly rare.  
> Mischief: ....... uh-hum, so--  
> Peter: *stares*  
> Mischief: i didn't mean to! ... mostly?  
> Peter: -- it's not a bad thing. i am just... _constantly_ surprised.
> 
> Mischief's whole-ass Pack: is it just me, or did Mischief's bond just get-- rainbow-ier?  
> Julia, watching Peter narrowly: nope. it's not just you.
> 
> soulhugs!!!! i love you all so much!!!! xoxoxoxo


	49. Lusagaria (Part III)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, hi!!! It's been, like, a month and a half, oops. At first I was overwhelmed by Christmas being much more hectic than I thought it would be and figured I'd get a new chapter out after the new year, and then, pretty immediately after, I got hit with the Big Bad and was honestly, solidly _down_ for a month. Sicker than I have ever been in my life. I'm fine now! Healed up and pretty close to fit as a fiddle, but that was certainly... an experience. Your comments, you guys, and your support and your patience, I honestly don't think I could ever thank you enough.
> 
> _The hugest soulhugs to you, my dear readers, the hugest._
> 
> And, now that I'm better and life has calmed, I'm fairly certain we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming; I love you guys!!! Thank you for bearing with me! I hope you enjoy this chapter!!!!
> 
>  **Trigger Warnings :** Pyrophobia(ish ish ish), Stiles has PTSD & Nightmares, Family Drama

Mischief hides in Peter as the bonfire is built in the central courtyard, hides in him as the celebration of dawn swells and trembles vibrant in the air. Remains bent into the hush-dark crook of his neck, inundated in an intimacy so intense that any degree of separation seems negligent, impossible.

If Peter weren't here, Mischief has no doubt he would've teleported back to Julia's apartments long since.

"Fucking hate fire," he says, when the silence becomes steeped in far too much feeling to stand. He's turned away from the brilliant liquid-orange flame, but he can still _smell_ it.

Smoke.

Dangerous, dangerous smoke.

He shuts his eyes. _No need to fear the daylight, time traveller,_ he reminds himself. _No need to fear the air. Everything's still—_

Peter pulls Mischief's pony-tail out from where it's caught between them, and, more notably, away from his mouth.

"Oh, shit, sorry."

Peter tugs on his hair a little and most of Mischief's good sense melts to tingle down his spine, "Don't be." He smooths a hand down Mischief's back and tightens his embrace— not enough to keep Mischief from breaking free if he wanted, just _enough._ "I am happy to be allowed to hold you."

Mischief's fingers tighten: where they're tangled with Peter's, still holding hands; where they're knotted in the cloth between his shoulder blades, still hanging on.

 _There's time,_ he thinks, and endeavours to make himself believe it.

* * *

Julia finds them on the outskirts of the courtyard, not partaking in the feast so much as overlooking it, its' vigilant sentinels. Roscoe, returned from his escapades in Dirgen's play, is curled up around their bodies. Peter is sitting, as solemn as she's ever seen him, petting Mischief's frazzled hair. And Mischief's head is in Peter's lap, face turned toward Peter's stomach, fast asleep.

Julia can see glimpses of Peter's eyes through the downward slope of his eyelashes. They're fixed on her little brother, and full of...

There is no name for it. No language.

"Julia," he murmurs.

She's been watching them for a while.

"Peter," she says.

She doesn't come any closer. Afraid of breaking the tableau. Afraid of waking him.

Mischief doesn't sleep well. She understands that better than most.

She has witnessed him gasp himself awake and gulp and swallow and sigh. She doesn't know if those are the better days, when he can manage it in quietude. They're easier for her, but for him? He keeps his burdens concealed from them all, his rainbow-textured packbond muted. Cushioning them from his own devastation. Boarding his tempests up behind as many walls as it takes to dull the sounds, numb the proxy-pain.

She has heard him scream out of slumber. Wail like a dying, petrified child.

She's woken up to him at the foot of her bed, unable to touch her but in need of her presence, in need of _some_ comfort. And she'd felt lucky, then, to be depended upon by this boy who tries his damnedest not to depend on anyone.

He's getting better about that: letting them help.

There is a selfish part of her that savagely envies how effortless it is for Peter, to be trusted and touched and relied upon. And there is a wonder, too. Some ethereal mist of awe rolling through the vasty chambers of her heart.

She's not the only one who feels this way. As engulfed as she is in her packbonds right now, she can sense the resonance of her emotion. They are, all of them, having some reaction to Kali's adopted kid-brother being so attached to the Hales' Left Hand.

Her Pack is adaptable, and they're already used to surprisingly intimate inter-Pack relationships. Mischief, however, is so _difficult_ to get close to, and he is, as far as they're concerned, _royalty._

It could not be more obvious how much Kali and Julia favour him. Their sentiments echo throughout their packbonds. Condense.

That Mischief's touch (and thereby his scent, his tangible regard, his approval) is a hard-fought thing, and fleeting-nervous even once won; that his trauma can make him ferrous and fragile in turns, can make him seem aloof whether or not he means to be: all this just serves to make his warmth toward Peter seem ever-more monumental. The meaning behind it ever-more profound.

Julia cannot help the clench of acrid fear in her belly, the unending rage that simmers beneath, ready and eager to be wielded. She doesn't know Peter as well as Kali does. But she knows _Mischief._ And she knows herself.

Even the Moon will not be able to save Peter, if he abuses the rare faith he has been given.

"Mischief wanted to cleanse me," she says, "after the play."

Peter pays her as much attention as a flickering candle in the corner of a room, only cherished for the light it bestows upon the angel nearby. "Did he?"

"Something about The Moon's Submersion. It bothered him. I don't think he thought I'd drown, necessarily. But something."

Peter hums, the hand carding through Mischief's hair fluttering to settle on the arch of his cheek over his mask. "He held his breath until you left the water."

Julia exhales and sinks down right where she is, on the thinnest edge of the rowdy feast, closer to the main road than the courtyard. Roscoe chuffs at her, blinking his headlight eyes slumberously. She flashes a grin at him. His tail thuds against the ground exactly twice.

They are content in their silence, enjoying the atmosphere of the feast without being a part of it. There are breaks wherein they discuss Peter's experience of the trade-route so far, or the banished vargr, or Laura's coming into her own (Peter boasts like a helplessly proud father, and Julia relishes every chance he hands her to laugh at him). But the silence always inevitably returns. Meditative. Kind, despite all the possibilities stewing underneath it.

Mischief jerks half-awake hours later, when the sky is roasting in full morning and both the feast and the bonfire have wound down. He makes a strange keening sound in the back of his throat, pushing his face into Peter's stomach like a newborn kitten, all heavy-slow urgency.

"Shh," Peter says, brow furrowing. "Hush, Mischief. Hush," his chest fills with a low purr that Julia has heard in packmates soothing their pups, in the few wolven lullabies remembered. It is not usually a sound given to strangers, or even friends.

"Stay," Mischief rasps, all a-dream. "Please, stay. Don't leave me again. Please. Please." He clings as well as he can, so steeped in sleep.

"I'm here," Peter says lowly. "I'm here, darling. I've got you. It's all right."

Mischief releases a single sob. "Stay," he says again, heartbreaking, then drifts back into the depths of his subconscious, unreachable.

Peter cradles Mischief close, a strain in his expression that's almost anguished. His body rumbles like a stormcloud, wracked with tremulous electricity and thunder. She can feel the shudder of it in the earth below her, despite being more than four steps away.

It's going to be hard for her to trust this man with her little brother, but she doesn't need to ask if he loves him. That much is obvious.

Kali comes through the dispersing crowd and Julia stands to go to her, to speak with her, to draw her away. Kali's not fooled. "Giving them privacy?" she asks, smug. She has been far more approving of this from the start, where Julia's been testy and, she'll admit, a little obstinate.

"No," Julia says, looping her arm in Kali's and lifting her chin. "Just being tactful."

 _"Right._ Tactful."

"If you'd like to spend the rest of Lusagaria confined to speaking with the frogs," Julia snipes primly, "you need only ask."

Kali laughs, unbridled and indelicate.

Julia's heart thrums like a freshly plucked harp.

Kali escapes the transaction un-hexed. (This time.)

* * *

* * *

Peter watches Roscoe chasing the chickens, inciting a riot of children to do the same before corraling said children away from the squawking-indignant little critters. Elodie, easily spotted with her lizard-kin tail and her mint-green scales, climbs atop Roscoe's back in retaliation. Roscoe makes a sound like a poorly engine startled to be turning over.

For some moments, the world is blindingly bright.

That brightness seems to pool and spill into the core of the one in his lap, as he stirs wakeful. Sun-burst eyes blinking, bathed in brittle innocence. Countenance youth-soft with swift-departing tranquillity.

"Hi?" he says, all sleep-haze uncertain, and Peter huffs at him.

 _"Hello,_ Mischief. Good morning."

Mischief levers himself up, "I— morning?" He looks around blearily. Sits up and installs himself at Peter's side, near but no longer touching. The air slowly cools whatever impression he might've left behind, and Peter mourns the loss with an intensity that surprises him.

Mischief yawns. Pulls the elastic out of his impressive mass of hair. Scratches his scalp and tousles the gnarled curls out. Roughly draws them all over to one side. Squints at the charcoal rubble of the dead bonfire. Squints at Peter. "Dude. Did you sleep at all?"

"No," Peter flashes his eyes with a crooked smile, "but unlike most earthly creatures, we lycanthropes are above such petty mortal limits as sleep deprivation."

"Oh, sure, yeah, totally forgot about that," Mischief says, awash with happy sarcasm, his gaze fond and his scent seeping lavender oil. _"Dork."_

"I prefer violent apex predator, thank you."

"I'm sure you do," Mischief drawls, very obviously laughing at him.

Peter is _captivated._ Elodie rides Roscoe like a warrior into battle somewhere in the distance, and the Giliberto Pack's pups bound to and fro, setting the hens to clucking, disgruntled, and Mischief is in profile against the soporific sunlight as it sweeps grandly across the carmine-red clay:

beautiful.

So, _Gods,_ beautiful.

"Julia said something about you wanting to cleanse her?" he says, eventually, curious despite himself.

"Yeah." Mischief's fingers twitch, once, _hard._

Peter says, gently, "May I ask why?"

Quiet descends, delicate and hesitant. The bond between them quivers with something just out of reach, Mischief's soul gone into hiding again. The scent on the air is caught in his sea's undertow, his weeping libraries, his sodden lavender fields. Then Mischief squares his shoulders under something terrible and turns to Peter with glinting, heart-stopping bravery.

"I was in a ritual drowning, once. I was stupid and shit-scared and I _barely_ knew what I was doing, but it was the _only_ thing we could do at the time. The only thing _I_ could do. To keep a piece of my family safe. And I got possessed by a fucking chaos demon for it. Because I'm lucky like that."

Peter's heart clenches so sharply it's as if someone's wrenched it out of his chest, brutal and bloody. Mischief wraps a hand around Peter's elbow, white-knuckled tightly, and presses his forehead to his shoulder. Just for an instant. A deep-bruising instant, laden with a weight almost too heavy to bear. And then Mischief is pulling away from him, and, Moon's mercy, but that's worse.

Peter manages, by some great exertion of will, not to sway.

Mischief says, "See you," in a rush so agonized-breathless that Peter can barely make it out. Then he's gone.

Peter's alone.

He closes his eyes, puts his head in his hands, and curses himself soundly.

* * *

In the far south-eastern corner of the compound, the red-clay footpaths become narrow and delirious. A maze laid out in innocuous trickery. During Lusagaria, even those that live within the Labyrinth Quarter can get lost here.

But this is where one must go in order to face the vessels of the three-fold. If you cannot find them in the many iterations of crossroads and complexity, then you were not _meant_ to.

There is honour in the seeking; every journey bears fruit, even if it is not the kind you were expecting. And— _patience._ Always patience.

If Peter doesn't manage to meet with them today, he'll simply try again next year.

A song coils through his mind as he walks along, an old wolven hymn never properly translated. He hums and murmurs and growls it, absently:

_'O, soft-paws, how the ancients have seen you_   
_O, soft-paws, gliding as if out of a dream_   
_And the graveyard priestess is laughing_   
_It creeps up on you in the middle of the night_   
_Fluttering eyelashes, and muscles tensed to fight_   
_Keep your fangs behind your lips_   
_Keep your blood beneath your skin_   
_If it can't see you, you can't see it_   
_Pretend if you want to live_   
_Or wage a war you mayn't win_   
_O, soft-paws, the ancients can see you_   
_O, soft-paws... O, soft-paws...'_

He allows himself to get lost.

The last few days paint over him with brushes impressionistic and vague. Recollections composed of mist.

He thinks of Talia, and how, when he was younger, he'd loved _knowing_ her, because she was so _difficult_ to know. The two of them were hidden behind the selfsame masks, their defences built by the same bricks, the same hands. Familiar. The reality of her had inspired such tenderness in him, simply because she was being herself. Even when he'd disagreed with her, they could discuss it, gain perspective—

Until he became Uncle Charlie's.

A soul marked for scarring. Half-dead already, in her eyes.

She'd begun turning away from him long before her irises had bled red and his had frozen blue. He'd kept reaching out to her, in a show of excess patience that was, if he's honest, just stubbornness ill-disguised.

But her packbond decayed and decayed and decayed.

In Peter's Siren-gifted nightmares, Mischief (or Stiles, or whoever he was in the future-that-won't) had called out to Peter in much the same way. Stretched, eager and yearning. He was left straining into a void, because that was all that the creature who Peter had become _was._

The space between stars.

Yet Mischief's soul had never stopped _blooming_ toward him. (And after the Siren was slain, the possibility of a packbond had rushed into him as a shaken scream, so frantic, so desperate, that Peter couldn't have _conceived_ of turning it away.)

Just as Peter's soul had never stopped blooming toward Talia.

Even after, after _everything_ — even after he'd promised to kill her if she abandoned Laura because she'd gone blue-eyed...

Perhaps he _should_ have killed her.

He'd threatened and cajoled, but Talia had still taken every inch he'd given until Laura was frayed beyond recognition. Until Laura was forced to take it into her own hands.

Peter had meant to protect her, his little niece.

He is glad that she's his Alpha, he's so fucking proud it hurts, but he does regret what it took.

He regrets, in some ways, that he loved his sister too much to do... so many things. Better, ultimately.

They're strangers, now, aren't they? Even if Talia relaxed her masks around him as she used to, he can't comprehend _any_ of her motivations anymore, and she stopped paying attention to his the moment he went blue-eyed.

He discovers no curiosity on the tail-end of this realization. No intellectual hunger. No dissatisfaction.

Talia is his sister, his ex-Alpha, a shadow cast over his entire life.

Talia is a stranger.

And whatever tatters remained of their bond— dissolve.

Simply.

Peter stops singing, in the middle of a word or the beginning of a verse, he doesn't know. He is all sudden stillness. Awareness sinks back into him by centimetres.

He is just outside of the labyrinth. He did not - will not - meet the vessels of the three-fold this year.

He shudders an exhale that leaves him alarmingly, achingly hollow. His packbonds flex, then billow and huddle at once around the place that Talia once kept. Mischief's bond (which is, excepting Laura's and Derek's, the deepest and brightest and by far the rawest, like an exposed wire sparking in the darkest pits of his soul) crackles, digs in to viscera, and haemorrhages a love so warm Peter _burns._

Feverish, he takes out his phone, and calls Laura.

He interrupts her day, likely burdens her, but they talk for hours. She puts him on speaker with the curadh gan chloí, with Derek, with the rest of the Pack. She babbles about the Nemeton and their Pack's first Lusagaria in centuries. He updates her on the trade-route and possible improvements they could impose. He submits himself to much teasing after, apparently, _waxing poetic_ about Mischief.

He grieves. Quietly.

She does, too.

"You are the better Alpha," he tells her before they say their goodbyes. "You always were. I hope you know that."

"Yeah," she says. "I do. I almost wish I didn't, but I do. I only can be because of you, though."

"Laura..."

"No, I'm serious, Uncle Peter. So much of the good in me comes from you. If I didn't have— if you hadn't been here. I wouldn't be here, either. Not really. Not like this."

Peter swallows, heavy. It's like succumbing to a wound, the _best_ kind of wound, and suffering immeasurable happiness.

"Thank you," she says.

Peter's smile is the most profound joy, the most profound agony, he has ever felt. "Lulu-love, if I have taught you anything, you have taught me ten-thousand things more. I love you. Thank you." The last part he half sighs, a little wistful: "My good girl."

She laughs, somewhat choked. "My dear, idiot Uncle."

He rolls his eyes. She sniffles.

"You'll be okay, Uncle Peter." A command or a question. It holds the intonations of both.

"Yes," he says.

"Good."

(Mischief's bond is still searing by the time they hang up.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> peter: *exudes lowkey crestfallen vibes*  
> mischief, in the process of aggressively ritually cleansing julia: ah, shit, fuck-- *sends i-love-you-with-literally-all-of-my-being vibes*  
> the giliberto pack, as mischief goes from rainbow to solar flare: awww, but also, ow, my soul-eyes
> 
> julia: ..........  
> kali: do you ship them, yet? huh? do ya? do ya?
> 
> _soulhugs~~~~_


	50. Lusagaria (Part IV)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content Warning :** Prepare yourself for the schmoop! There is so much schmoop ahead, folks, oml, lol
> 
>  **Trigger Warning :** Mischief has PTSD, Grief, Complicated Feelings, Religion/Faith
> 
> (IT'S THE FIFTIETH CHAPTER, GUYS!!! WHOOP! And thank you so, so much, to all of you sending well-wishes and being so understanding and loving and just freaking _compassionate_. I know I don't really respond to comments anymore but every single one gives me life and inspiration and brightens my day so much. There are no words for how grateful I am and how blessed I feel. 🌺🌺🌺)

This is the way of Dirgen: every graveyard is also a garden. (Dead werewolves provide pretty fantastic fertilizer, as morbid as that may sound.) This is how a wolf is reborn; this is how the dead are honoured.

Dirgen's High Priests deliver Mother Moon's shadows unto His cradle, plant them, and nurture their rebirth. Shadows inevitably cast light, lights inevitably cast shadow. The eternal cycle of life and death, akin to gravity: what comes from the earth must always return to it.

And what comes from the moon, well...

Kali is in the main graveyard with Julia and Mischief. They're making the minor pilgrimage to Dirgen's shrine: they walk the shallow, winding moon-sand paths through the varied fruit trees and herbs and vegetation, making peace with their dead.

(Mischief had been most dubious about this part of the process. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to make _peace_ with my dead," he'd murmured, uncertain.

Julia and Kali had regarded him in a severe moment of unspeakable sadness. Then Julia had said, "No one holds that against you. Not even the Gods. But— maybe _'make peace with'_ isn't the right thing to say. Peace isn't a _requirement."_ Her face had softened into something sage and raw with nurture, an expression Kali'd never seen before Mischief came into their lives. "But let them speak to you. Through the earth, through your soul. Let them whisper. Be frightened, or anguished, or happy. Feel whatever you must, so long as you _listen."_

"Man," Mischief had said, slightly shaken, "that is... Yeah, I am very much not reassured."

He'd laughed off any other attempts to soothe. "I'll go," he'd said. "I _want_ to go. Don't worry about me." Which is precisely the sort of thing that'd make them worry the most.)

Mischief's eyes remain perpetually red-lined and watery throughout, a twitch jittering just beneath the skin, his breath short and crackling with the electricity of suppressed emotion. Complexion blotchy. Fingers ticking rhythmically against his legs.

She might've suspected this duress to be the cause of the utter _flood_ of febrile love gushing out of him every Gods' blessed second, were it not for the fact that his packbond had begun gorging them all on heart-scorching devotion sometime during his four-hour cleansing marathon of Julia. The feeling doesn't seem directed at _them,_ exactly, it's simply bleeding over like coloured ink through tissue paper.

Kali has no idea if the heavy flow of it through every barrier is due to Lusagaria (the festival has swollen _every_ packbond to seeping and mingling), or if it's just _Mischief._

Mischief, who'd bonded with even the packmates he'd _never met_ so deeply that they could've painted an entire landscape based on the rainbow texture of his soul.

At the moment, being bonded to him is like being submerged within the galactic belly of a blazing star.

She sends as much affection and comfort as she can right back, unhappy that she can't shelter him under her arm and cuddle him tight. Touching him now would only be cruel.

Julia shares a wounded glance with her and folds their hands together. They watch over him closely as they walk.

(Kali allows her ghosts to wash over her. Daddy, who she both resented and strove to be better than for years and years and years. Daddy, who would've probably slaughtered her in infancy if he'd known what their Pack would become without him. And Mama, who she knows, deep in her bones, would've been so, so proud. Daddy means nothing in the face of that. He never will.)

At the close of the moon-sand paths, there is a tiny watermelon patch and a pitch of finely raked moon-sand circling an immense and delicately crafted statue of Dirgen. The eternal gardener looks down upon them under heavy-hooded brows. His is a broad, intimidating face with eyes that are as storm-hardened as they are kind.

Mischief inhales sharply and makes an indecipherable, belly-deep noise. His packbond never wavers, but his scent is so much the sea that Kali is beginning to ache for any lost hints of libraries and lavender.

"What is it?" she inquires gently.

Mischief laughs as if he's breaking apart. "He kind of looks like Derek, doesn't he?"

Julia frowns and squints at the statue they've both known since they were babes.

"I don't see it," Kali admits, without having to look. She vaguely recalls the scowly kid who helped her seclude Mischief when company became too much during the treaty-signing-afterparty. If there _is_ a physical resemblance, it's too scanty for her memory to latch onto.

"The eyebrows... Maybe," Julia muses.

Mischief sniffles. Hums. "When he gets older," he says, soft and strangely wistful. "You'll see. Well. Except for the hair."

Dirgen has hair like Mischief's, long and thrashing.

"Maybe," Julia says again, though she sounds doubtful.

They all kneel to pray. Julia and Kali will return later to make their sacrifices; Mischief has told them he's not quite ready for that yet. They understand.

Mischief weeps at Kali's side.

Despite how it makes Kali's heart wobble and clench, sick with sympathy, it is a tender sound.

Eventually, Mischief calms down and they're done praying. They leave. It is another pilgrimage to reach the outskirts of the graveyard. Kali can hear her father and her mother and her ancestors in the wind, rustling leaves, and shifting vines. They're quieter, now, less abrasive. Their tide flows _with_ her, instead of chafing against. Every step they take, she's less anxious, more sure of herself.

They're back on the main footpath, headed to the heart-spring creche, when they run into Peter.

In almost complete synchronicity, Peter and Mischief ask each other, "Are you okay?"

Kali gets why _Peter's_ asking. Mischief's a mess. The vice versa confounds her, especially in that Mischief actually seems the more urgent of the two about it. He goes to Peter and hunts for injuries or anything like with his eyes.

"I'm fine," he says, half rote, half impatient. "What about you? I was— I've been— I had to cleanse Julia, and now we're," an indecipherable gesture, "visiting the Gods. But earlier you felt really, uh," he darts a glance at Kali and Julia, apparently unsure how much he should share in public. "Unmoored, I guess," he concludes at last. "I texted you, but I didn't have time to find out where you were or what was going on. I knew you weren't in _danger,_ or else I—"

"Mischief," Peter says, amusement shading his solicitude.

Kali has found that his political mask fares _badly_ wherever Mischief is concerned. She never would've said that Peter was one to wear his heart on his sleeve before, but his smile now is so full of adoration and worriment and mirth-sweetened sorrow that she can't help but think it.

"I am well," he says. His voice tumbles lower, rasped through with (Kali is startled to hear) that particular wolven lull meant for distraught loved ones, "I just lost something dear to me, but... it'd been a long time lost, already."

Mischief sways further into Peter's space, somewhat helplessly; a flower turning toward the sun. Hushed, he asks, "What did you lose?"

Peter's smile grows a touch indulgent. "Perhaps another time?" he says, indicating their audience. (They're close enough to the creche that it's not just Kali and Julia.)

Mischief stares into him, deeply and intimately. Absorbed and contained. A beast charmed. "You're _sure_ you're alright?"

Peter— melts. There's no other word for it.

Kali can nearly taste the char-spice fumes of galaxies on her tongue, Mischief's love sizzling ecstatic in her chest.

"Yes," Peter says, reaching out very slowly. Mischief allows him to hook stray wisping curls behind his ears, to cup his cheeks over his gas mask. "Yes, my darling. Truly."

Mischief does nothing but breathe for a moment.

The wild, burning starlight in his packbond begins to recede. Slowly, slowly, galactic enormity wanes back into rain and dusty prismatic colour.

Kali sees several packmates in the background attempt not to stagger. Julia lurches into her side and whisper-hisses, "That was for _him?"_ actually indignant. Kali barely refrains from laughing at her.

Of course it was. Of fucking _course_ it was, how could it have been for anyone else?

Peter's eyes are so vivid, gleaming. His mouth parts around words he does not say, shuts soundlessly. Then, in the lowest register he can conceivably have (do _earthquakes_ breed in the hollow of his throat? Good Gods, man), "And you? Fine is never what you are. Don't lie to me, please."

If there is anything that could make Kali wary of this relationship, it's that: that _hunger._ Peter will never stop asking questions, even if they gouge to blood, to viscera. He just can't help himself.

But Mischief doesn't shy away, although it's obvious he wants to. "We visited Dirgen first," he says, voice like water-sodden autumn leaves being crushed underfoot. He gazes up at Peter through dewy eyelashes, and whatever is in his eyes makes Peter look dizzied.

Peter pets Mischief's hair, his neck. Absently scent marking. Kali doesn't think he even knows he's doing it. "You let yourself grieve them, didn't you?" Peter asks with a quiet sort of reverence that Kali doesn't quite understand.

"Yeah," Mischief breathes, shaky. "It sucked."

Peter chuckles, solemn and brightening at once. "Such is the way of grief, hm? You've done well, Mischief. So well." With some effort, he pulls his hands away, countenance as pleasant as she's ever fucking seen it. "May He plant groves upon groves for your people."

Mischief knuckles at his eyes, fresh tears falling. "Fuck you," he husks, soaked in enough affection to be embarrassing. "We're doing Paleadnysa next. Wanna come?"

Peter does, and the two men walk side-by-side, silent pillars of steadfast support for one another, as their party visits the rest of the compound's shrines.

* * *

The tradition that ends Lusagaria requires every packmate to add something to the Gate. A symbol of their devotion to their Pack and its safety, a supplicant's offering to the Old Gods: may Their eyes look kindly upon us and ours. May the Gates hold. May it keep us safe. May we all have faith.

When Peter gets home, he's going to add a belated something to the wrap-around rowan counter in the animal clinic. It has been... ages, true ages, since anyone but the Hale Pack's Emissary has minded their Gate in any way.

Thank the Gods, thank _Laura_ — that will soon be changing.

His own beliefs have little to nothing to do with this sentiment: simply put, there is no other festival or ritual (to his knowledge) capable of accumulating this much raw defensive power and refining it for the Pack's sake.

Kali binds a dyed coyote pelt to the fencing. Julia ties on one of her old, yellow cotton headbands. Elodie places a favourite doll at the feet of the Gate (that is, where winding metal bites into red-clay and sand). Nunna has made a strangely delicate windchime out of broken teacups and plates. Thomas and Kyrie have combined efforts: they put up several thin wooden panels, painted to depict a rather charming mural. Raamah has (hilariously, in Peter's opinion) created a life-sized voodoo doll out of bleached bone, an amalgamation of different animals puzzled into something utterly alien.

Every addition bends Providence further to their purpose, until it's vibrating in the air around them. A song that belongs to no worldly lung, no blood and muscle contained thing. This, too, is woven into their shield, boundary, _Gate._

Mischief's offering proves him to be, as always, irrefragably himself.

He carries a hefty receptacle full of mountain ash so mixed with blood it has become a thick paste. When his turn comes he begins to chant. The paste rises in serpentine ropes. Mischief's head falls back, rich brown curls cascading down from that copper tiger lily hair stick of his. His adam's apple moves enticingly beneath the fragile freckled skin of his throat.

The paste slithers outward, meeting each faction of the gate with a hiss that makes Mischief's body undulate slightly. He raises his arms in a sky-swept arc; the movement supple, drowned in conviction.

The very firmament seems to swallow his voice as if _dying_ for it.

The paste slinks under even the most ancient articles of worship, coating the chain-link beneath and rebraiding the metal tighter, sturdier, more potent.

When he's finished, Mischief is trembling, weak with the drain, but his eyes open and his face opens with them. He becomes _violently_ radiant, releasing a laugh so sighing it can barely be heard (what little _is_ heard is crystal-raw joy). His packbond glows so fiercely that for one, striking moment, they can almost see the rainbow taking wing in the sky, flaunting its colours; they can almost feel the rain sprinkling gently-gently upon their heads, their shoulders. The only scent left is condensed lavender oil and libraries built on foundations of sea-salt.

Then Mischief looks over at Peter, and—

And—

Peter's turned inside out by it.

He wants— he _wants_ — to consume. To be consumed. Everything, everything, _everything._ His heart trills frantically: a bird caught in a trap (or else, a bird, at last, set free).

It takes more than he'd like to admit to swallow the ravening thing welling up inside him, to recall himself to some semblance of calm.

But that image of Mischief will stain the back of his eyelids like oil paints on canvas, blood-warm and gilded in sunlight, all throughout his trip back home, and for long days afterwards.

For years yet to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mischief: *does literally anything*  
> peter: i would _die_ for you  
> (to be fair, the opposite is also true)
> 
> also, on kali watching this all unfold with a big bag of popcorn while julie's beside her, one eye twitching, lol
> 
> also, also, on one of the packmates turning to the other like: bro, i'm pretty sure a nuke could fall on us right now and we'd literally be _fine_  
>  and someone going: so _that's_ why he wanted a vial of everyone's blood!  
> and someone else going: motherfucker, if this is what comes from giving that kid a vial of my blood I will _gladly_ bleed out for him. no questions asked. my veins are his for the mining, i don't even _care_  
>  while the vargr, outside, are just staring on in bewilderment
> 
> mischief, satisfied: the only bish who can teleport into our compound now is _me,_ anyone else will get yeeted into the sun  
> everyone else: how are you even _real_
> 
> _soulhugs, soulhugs, soulhugs~~~_
> 
> [Up Next: Interlude/Intermission, aka, wherein we have an itsy-bitsy peek at de bb!Pack and bb!Stiles]


	51. Interlude (End of Act V)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm two days late! oops. This chapter was harder to wrangle than I was expecting, I hope it turned out okay *is ever-anxious*...
> 
> also: do you guys remember that one time in canon when Stiles made a throw-away comment about having a boa, once? ... welp. have some snek, lol (a very small amount of snek, but still!)
> 
>  **Content Warning :** Stiles has Abandonment Issues &c. —— ALSO I AM BAD AT WRITING CHILDREN, IF THEY'RE ACTING TOO ADULT I'M SO SORRY
> 
> Minor Spoilery Note:  
> \---  
> In order of appearance: Henley and Ben-J, Ailbhe and Lily, Derek, Helena-Mae, Philip, Laura, Róisín, Siofra, and Denna

Stiles Stilinski is sitting in the waiting room of the veterinary clinic. On the blue plastic chair next to him: a temporary tub for Apple, his boa constrictor. She hasn't been eating, and, even though she seems perfectly healthy everywhere else, her husbandry is perfect, and she's actually _gaining_ weight rather than losing it, he's too worried to let it rest.

Isaac's in the chair on his other side, upside down, his legs crossed over the back of the chair and his head dangling from the edge of its seat. He's squinting at the ceiling, trying to make out faces. There's a sketchpad balanced precariously in his lap; every once in a while he'll make a sharp, drastic line with his charcoal pencil.

The drawing that evolves is patently freaking gorgeous.

Stiles watches with some interest in-between messing in the group-chat and bidding for a fabulously obscure book written by _Dubheasa Mac Céile._ (He has been fast learning Old Irish this year.)

In thirty minutes, one of the reasons for this particular bent in linguistic and historical study will waltz brazenly through the front door to, randomly and without reason, tie a ribbon onto the reception counter.

Stiles stares at her.

"Cora?" he says.

"Yeah?"

There is nothing at all in her voice to indicate the past few months of bewildering absence after her mother (somehow) became wheelchair-bound, quit her job, and then became a recluse (vaguely in that order). Cora and her cousins, Gabriel and Tadgh, had been sorta-friends with them for a minute, there. Then all of the Hale kids got pulled out of school just shy of summer break due to a _family emergency._ They've been keeping so tightly to themselves ever since that approaching any of them had seemed impossible.

"What are you— what're you doing?"

"It's a religious thing," she says. "Don't worry about it."

Stiles scowls and resolves to add this, too, to his _The Hales, What Even_ journal.

His phone dings. He's immediately caught up trying to out-bid _MimosaTheII,_ who is being very aggressive and completely uncaring about the fact that Stiles only has a limited amount of freaking funds, for God's sake. (Selling essays and blackmailing people only gets one so far.)

When he emerges, victorious and hideously poor, Isaac is right-side-up and Cora has somehow been annexed into their company.

"— wish I could've seen their faces," she's saying, with earnest savagery. "What kind of person doesn't help someone who's having a seizure? That sort of thing isn't _funny."_

"Well," Isaac says, "they weren't laughing long."

No, Stiles thinks, a grim-heavy sort of satisfaction unfurling in his belly. No, they certainly weren't.

"Your Uncle helped us get them suspended," Stiles puts in, although he has no idea whether or not Isaac already covered this.

Cora smirks slightly, a gleam in her eyes that could be impish or vicious. "Did he know what you'd do to them after?"

"No," Stiles says slowly, thoughtfully. "But he wouldn't have disapproved, would he?"

"Oh, _no,"_ she says, a roar of laughter pouring out of her without ever leaving her body. "He'd have encouraged you to do _worse."_

Stiles raises an eyebrow, "Huh."

Something to cultivate later, maybe.

As the three of them sit together, catching up, a veritable parade of Hales pass through:

To start: a girl who must be in her mid-teens with sleek brown hair, a very round forehead, and eyes of such a clear blue they're startling. She's shadowed by a looming man composed entirely of sharp angles; he's cadaverously pale but for his coppery elbows and nose, the long red hair tumbling messily around his freckled face bright as fresh blood.

The man places a large potted plant down in the corner between the counter and the wall, and the girl infests said plant with bugs too small to be noticed by anyone who hadn't actively seen her do it. They both leave without acknowledging Cora beyond a chuck on her shoulder (the girl) and a small, vaguely sardonic smile (the man).

Next: two women that seem to be on either extreme of the Hale broods' scales of preposterous beauty. The first is tall and willowy, hair as black and glossy as raw ink spilling down her shoulders in winding rivers, wide eyes a splash of ensorceling greens and blues, skin like smooth sand under a cool, starless sky. The second is compact muscle sculpted from rose-blushed ivory, her hair such a rush of claret that it's nearly indecent, her eyes thin slivers of storm-clouds painted into her irises with oils and absurd providence. They gift the reception counter a knitted teddy bear and a woven bowl respectively.

The first smiles at Cora disarmingly enough to end entire wars as she leaves, her endearingly large ears peeking out of her hair, her eyes gone squishy and affection-sweet. The second simply nods, stern, but no less intimate.

After that: one Stiles actually knows, albeit tangentially: Derek Hale. Cora's big brother. He's got the looks (Jesus Christ, they _all_ do), but absolutely none of the charm. He's more like to scowl than smile, walk away than speak. And whenever he sees Stiles he tends to inhale very deeply, then stare at him like he's contemplating the depths of the universe (or, you know, _murder)_.

Derek sets a book (well-used, if the state of it is anything to go by) next to the bear and the bowl. He spends a solid minute after he's done just _staring_ at Stiles.

Before Stiles can snap at him for it, Cora says, "You're totally feeding into his paranoia, Derek."

Derek's intense scrutiny slides away (freaking _finally),_ lands on his sister with much less fervour. "What?"

"Stiles has this whole conspiracy that you want to kill him in his sleep, or something."

Isaac snickers into his sketchpad.

Stiles glowers at them. Where is the _loyalty,_ huh? Not here, obviously.

Derek actually considers this, to Stiles' great indignance. "Has he hurt you?"

"Nope," Cora grins, like the horrible demon she is. Stiles can't believe he didn't see it sooner.

"Then he has nothing to worry about," Derek says. He smooths a hand over Cora's hair, briefly nuzzles into her cheek, then leaves as if this is all completely normal behaviour.

Sometimes Stiles wonders if they're even _trying_ to hide.

"You're awful," he tells Cora, only slightly spitefully.

"You love me," she says.

"You have a lot of confidence for someone who bailed for upwards of three months."

Huh. Maybe he was more hurt by that than he thought.

Cora grimaces and glares down at her lap. Stiles, arms folded across his chest, looks away. Isaac watches on helplessly.

"There really _was_ a family emergency," she murmurs unhappily. "I couldn't— I needed to stay home."

"You have a phone," he reminds her. "You could've texted. E-mailed. Whatever." The bitterness that bristles in his throat nearly suffocates him. He knows he's not family to her, just as he knows that she's keeping many, many secrets from him (that doesn't matter. He'll figure it out on his own; he's pretty sure he already _has)_ , but did she really have to disappear like that?

Not even a goodbye.

She lost out on pieces of their lives, maybe small pieces, but he'd expected her to _be there._ He'd _wanted_ her to be there.

(Did _she_ want to be there?)

Isaac breaks through the tension, quiet but painfully sincere, "We really missed you a lot, Cora."

"I know," she says, shaded half-miserable. "I know."

Which is, of course, when Gabriel and Tadgh scurry in. Cora looks up at them with pursed lips, the corners of her eyes pained, and they both freeze in place for a moment (their backs pressed guardingly against the glass door).

"Everything okay, Cora-Cora?" Gabriel breaks first, going to her. Tadgh is more hesitant and less distractible; he ties a red square of cloth to the counter before approaching, warily.

All at once, Stiles snaps, "It's fine," Isaac hums nervously in the back of his throat, and Cora sighs, "No."

Gabriel's eyes skim over each of them in turn. "Well," he says. "That was... decipherable."

Tadgh, eyebrow raised: "What's wrong?"

Isaac and Cora both look at Stiles. He stews in his ire for a few petty seconds. Then, because he is honestly getting bad at refusing any of his friends anything, he seethes, "You all _left._ Yes, you had to. Alright. I get that. But none of you _said_ anything. Did you even—"

He snaps his mouth shut. Roughs a hand over his face. Huffs at himself. "I'm— being stupid."

"No, you're not," Tadgh says, growing solemn.

"Only a little," Isaac says at the same time, pressing into Stiles' side with a too-sympathetic smile.

The bristly thing in Stiles' throat begins to feel a tiny bit less lethal.

Gabriel wrings the yarn-braided bracelet in his hands, earnest and faintly frowning, "We aren't— we aren't used to having friends outside the family. And. So."

Stiles has mercy on him, offering a dry smile. "I don't think _anyone_ in our rag-tag group is used to having friends. Period.— That's including me," he looks at Gabriel directly, as soft as he can be, as honest. "I have no idea what I'm doing either, okay? But I don't want to lose you. Any of you. And it felt like I had, these last few months; lost you."

"You're not the only one who felt that way," Isaac says, mostly addressing his sketchpad. Hunched in on himself. Ever-shy.

Stiles swallows thickly. "Yeah." He straightens his shoulders, that strange _big brother_ feeling that Isaac always inspires suffusing him. "It hurt like hell," this is the most ardent truth he can deliver; Cora, Gabriel, and Tadgh all jerk as if they've been lanced by lightning. "So," he says, "if you're going to keep being our friends you can never do that again, alright?"

All three Hales agree immediately, keenly, and intently.

Gabriel binds his bracelet to the reception counter.

Isaac and Stiles start affixing them to the group-chat and regaling them with all they'd missed while they were gone. Forgiveness is granted so fully that they're even more intimate with each other than they'd been _before_ the Great Interim.

A woman comes in, the intense arch of her eyebrows and the sharp cut of her jaw loudly proclaiming her a Hale. She's held rigidly, greying auburn hair snapped up in a tight bun, eyes the jagged pits of a cliff jutting out of an icy lake. Fair skin less complimented by the refined off-white dress she's wearing than washed out by it. She's tall and thin enough that her uniform white stilettos make her seem— rickety. Like the naked beams of an unfinished skyscraper on the eve of a gruesome earthquake, like the embodiment of imminent catastrophe.

Unlike her preceding kinsmen, she doesn't go directly up to the counter, but rounds on their party, instead.

 _"Children,"_ she says, of Cora, Gabriel, and Tadgh, clearly aggrieved.

Only Gabriel has the decency to look even vaguely sheepish, though he's smiling. Cora is all defiance. Tadgh pays her _absolutely_ no mind.

"Now is certainly not the time to be running off to parts unknown without supervision," she says, stiff and chiding.

"But we _didn't_ run off to parts unknown," Cora returns. "You knew exactly where we went."

"That's not the part to focus on," Tadgh says calmly, flipping to the next page in Isaac's sketchpad.

(Isaac had handed it over readily when Tadgh had asked to see it. Tadgh isn't usually the type to be interested in anything, let alone to pretend interest. His genuine fascination for Isaac's work is the highest compliment he can pay. Isaac indulges him, less and less self-consciously as time goes by.)

"You could've asked Fiachra, Kerry, or Leo to escort you," she says, proving Tadgh's point. "In fact, you _should_ have. I'd expected better from each of you." Despite her words, her gaze lingers longest and hardest on Cora.

Isaac smiles slightly, "Slipped the leash, huh?"

Stiles' attention sharpens to a fine, dangerous point.

If any of his theories are correct, it would make sense, them having a _leash_ to slip. Yet it chafes, nearly to bone, the idea of it.

"I wanted them here," he says. This is an absolute, heart-steady truth. If she comes to the conclusion that he'd _invited_ them here, that he'd made it impossible for them to refuse, from the petulant insolence in his tone, well— so much the better. "Are they in trouble?"

Dad hasn't let him get away with that sort of a whine since he was five. Camden hasn't let him get away with it _ever._

This lady falls for it hook, line, and sinker. She falters. Heaves a sigh. "No, dear, they're not in trouble." Her voice becomes strict again, foreboding, "Not _this_ time."

He's very proud of his friends. They're keeping their looks of half-alarmed incredulity exceptionally subtle.

"But they can stay, can't they?" he asks, allowing himself to look and sound more vulnerable than he ever would otherwise. (He doesn't say anything about the so freshly settled conflict. She hasn't earned that.) "It's Summer! And we'll take good care of them," he turns to Isaac with an eager, puppy-ish expression that he totally stole from Scott. "right?"

"Totally," Isaac says faintly, eyes wide.

"See?" Stiles says. "So it's okay, isn't it? Please?"

The woman's lips thin. She shifts in place, minor readjustments of weight to make physical her clinking thoughts. "You're here for your—" her eyes flick to Apple's tub.

"My snake," Stiles says.

A moue of distaste is badly suppressed. "Hmm," she says. "I'm going to run some errands," she tells the Hales within their company, "you three will be at the park in two hours, or there will be a reckoning. Am I clear?"

"Sure," Cora says, as Gabriel salutes, "Yes, ma'am," and Tadgh nods distractedly.

She does not touch them and she does not add to the counter. She leaves.

Isaac, out of some age-old instinct, does not lose his tension until the Hales do. Stiles, suspicious of possible supernatural eavesdropping abilities, is glad he waits until then to say, _"Jesus,_ Stiles."

"What?" Stiles asks, somewhere between haughty and genuinely curious. Isaac's seen some of his best, he can't understand how his mediocre would be surprising. "I wasn't even trying that hard."

Gabriel bursts out laughing.

Isaac puts his head in his hands, muttering, "Oh, my God."

Tadgh, smirking, pats Isaac's shoulder without sympathy.

Cora flashes a smile at him that's all teeth, brilliance, and daring, "Thanks for getting us outta that, Stiles."

He reaches out to run his fingers through her hair, as admonishing as he is fond, "Don't get _caught_ next time, dummy."

Her whole aspect softens. She promises, "We'll do our best," which Stiles supposes will have to do.

(And if it ever _doesn't,_ he'll just have to be there. Somehow.)

* * *

The last Hale to do the rounds before Doctor Deaton calls Stiles and Apple in is Cora's eldest brother, Philip, who leaves a folded crane atop Derek's book with a wistful air. He pinches Cora's cheek, grasps Gabriel's wrist, and ruffles Tadgh's hair companionably, though all three of them seem disgruntled by the forms of his affection.

He jokes about the three cousins' 'jailbreak' (Stiles very carefully doesn't scowl) and gives all five of them a piece of candy before gallivanting off.

"He is _such_ a weirdo," Cora says with half-disgusted tenderness.

Somewhere between escorting a little old man and his charming pig out, and gathering Apple and Stiles' party up, Deaton looks over his gift-laden wrap-around counter with aching relief.

It only serves to make Stiles more _unbearably_ curious.

As does the fact that Cora, Gabriel, and Tadgh all seem to know Deaton fairly well. They call him Alan, they get close, they cling. They treat him almost as they would any other member of their family.

 _Why?_ It beats in his brain until he's sure it's not blood running through his veins, but queries.

Deaton frowns in consternation as he examines Apple, an expression that gets deeper and deeper, until: "Mr Stilinski, would you mind if I kept her for observation? Only for a few days, I assure you."

"Is there something wrong with her?" Stiles asks, worried.

Deaton presses two gloved fingers to Apple's head. Apple blinks slowly, deliberately. "Not as such, no," Deaton murmurs. Pretty hecking ominously in Stiles' opinion. "But I would like to see her eating habits for myself, if that's alright."

Cora claps Stiles' shoulder, "Don't worry," she says, "even if there _is_ something wrong, Alan'll fix her up." She directs the considerable force of her expectant glare on the good doctor, _"Right,_ Alan."

Deaton smiles benignly. "Of course."

Cora slings an arm around Stiles' neck, "See? Nothing to worry about."

"Sure," Stiles agrees, his voice heavy with scepticism.

"Oh, _come on,"_ Gabriel says, poking Stiles jeeringly. But even Scott, on his best day, can't curb Stiles' paranoia. Gabriel doesn't stand a chance.

Tadgh begins slouching out of the room with nary a word. Isaac, somewhat caught in his gravity, follows like a baby duckling. Gabriel, excitable, is quickly on their heels. Cora manoeuvres them into stride with the rest.

"It'll be fine," she says.

And, okay, maybe it will be. But Stiles is going to be antsy, anyway, sue him.

* * *

On their way to the park (after a foray in that one diner Kylie and Malia like, in which Tadgh actually beat Stiles at chess. _Twice.)_ they run into Laura, arm-in-arm with three other Hales:

The one to her right is _all_ freckles. Seriously, they're everywhere. Her long, straight hair is such a light ash brown it gives the impression that just a few days in the sun would turn it blonde. Bright blue-jay eyes, rich bronzy skin, donned in a floaty floral-patterned red dress and pink ballet flats. (Laura herself is wearing much the same. Such as it is, the only thing keeping them from resembling identical twins is their colouring.)

To Laura's left, a woman in a very, _very_ vintage yellow gown. Stiles isn't sure of the exact era, but it both suits her and makes her stand out in a way she likely wouldn't have otherwise. She's beautiful by normal human standards, obviously, but next to her kinsmen she looks decidedly plain. There's something in her face that's just... If she were wearing anything else, standing with anyone else, your gaze would slide right off of her, like water.

Just behind is Stiles' Math Teacher, Denna Hale, the one who never lets anyone call her _Miss Hale_ because she finds it confusing ("Do you _know_ how big my family is?") and distasteful. She's got pearls dangling from her earlobes on golden chains and a loose green tank-top tucked into high-waisted black leather pants. Her heels are swaying from her hooked fingers, leaving her delicate feet bare. Skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and, despite being shaved, hair as black as night. A walking fairytale, and one of the best teachers Stiles has ever had.

(All the kids love her. Most of the elementary school faculty detest her. Stiles handed in a math test dedicated to sperm whales once and actually got extra credit for it, before being allowed to retake the test alone during recess. He heard Mr Thompson call her a flighty hippy bitch a few days later. Within the next three months, Mr Thompson got divorced, got fired, and left town.

Stiles is actually pretty proud of that one.)

"Little sister!" Laura cries, launching herself at Cora and swinging the girl up into her arms. Cora makes several protesting noises and attempts to scramble out of her hold. Laura pulls her against her chest, tucks her under her chin, and squeezes the life out of her without even breaking a sweat.

 _"Stars,"_ Cora hisses, "would you put. Me. Down?"

Laura hums and nuzzles Cora's hair.

Cora heaves a grand sigh, resigned.

Laura finally relents, sets her sister on her feet on the sidewalk. _"You three,"_ she tuts, but her eyes are sparkling. "Helena-Mae nearly had a heart attack when she realized what you'd done."

"Oh, what you'd _done?"_ Stiles repeats, leading. That sounds quite a bit more involved than _slipping the leash._ Philip did call it a jailbreak. "Planned and premeditated," he says under his breath, "and she _still_ caught you?"

Cora groans, Isaac snickers, Gabriel's contrite expression is wholly unbelievable, and Tadgh says, "To be fair, it is meant to be her _job."_

"That's no excuse," he informs him.

"She never catches _Derek,"_ Cora says petulantly.

Stiles twitches. "You're telling me Derek is sneakier than you." His voice is flat and low. That needs to be rectified immediately. Especially since—

"Oh, come on," Gabriel says. "He doesn't _actually_ want to kill you, Stiles."

The ash-brown one and Laura both choke on what could be laughter.

Stiles glares at him. "Then what's with all the _murderous glaring,_ huh?"

Laura face-palms. Suffers a bout of giggly hiccups.

"I'd thought we were past that," the... Victorian? Edwardian? one says vaguely.

"He's just... clumsy," Laura tries to explain.

Then Denna, having enough of being ignored, bursts, "What? No hellos for your favourite teacher? Am I actually hated outside of school? Your true feelings shining through, is that what this is?"

And all descends into wretched, delightful chaos.

By the time they reach the park, Gabriel is on Denna's shoulders and Cora is climbing her moving legs in an attempt to drag him back down. Siofra, Isaac, and Tadgh are talking about art museums. Laura and her twinning cousin, Róisín, are half-dancing, half-conversing with Stiles and each other.

The rickety woman is waiting for them, standing erect like soon to be demolished scaffolding. The one that holds the leash _(it's meant to be her job,_ Tadgh had said, whatever _that's_ supposed to mean).

She looks upon them with something self-contained and hollowed out. The fragility that permeates her seems to buzz and glitter around her shoulders like fireflies.

"Helena-Mae," Róisín calls kindly when she sees her.

Helena-Mae smiles like her heart is breaking.

Stiles wonders severely, a constant state of mind for him these days, what is up with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a) note, again: In order of appearance: Henley and Ben-J, Ailbhe and Lily, Derek, Helena-Mae, Philip, Laura, Róisín, Siofra, and Denna (because I know that might've been slightly confusing, and thanks for bearing with many appearance-expositions, i might've indulged myself a bit, i hope it wasn't too boring or frustrating to follow or anything?)
> 
> b) bb!stiles has _so many_ journals. like, so many. (and a distressing number of them are dedicated to the Argents and the Hales.) most of them are written in such hackneyed code and with such mad-scientist chicken scratch that, like, only teenaged Lydia and/or before-after Peter might be able to crack them, if they're in a good mood and they've got a free afternoon on their hands. (because, honestly, if they're in a bad mood, they're more likely to set it all on fire and threaten Stiles with severe bodily harm if he doesn't just _tell them everything they want to know **right now.** )_  
> okay, there is _one_ other person who might be able to crack them, but: s p o i l e r s
> 
> c) stiles, upon realizing he knows the first names of basically everyone in town except for the hecking hales: _motherfu--_  
>  stiles, upon realizing that using the prominence of your last name as such successful obfuscation in a town as small as beacon hills is pretty damn clever: *begrudging respect*
> 
> also, stiles: hey, cora, we're friends, right?  
> cora: ... yeah?  
> stiles: can you give me a list of your family's names? preferably with pictures attached?  
> cora: ........  
> camden: stiles, we've talked about this. you can't just--  
> (cora: ............)  
> stiles: ugh, fine. tadgh?  
> tadgh: *immediately hands over several dossiers without comment*  
> stiles: _awesome_  
>  camden: ... i honestly can't tell who's the worse influence, here.  
> cora: *torn between looking at her cousin in betrayal and looking at her friend in indulgent disdain*
> 
> d) every comment feeds my soul (even if i'm wretched at responding, i'm so sorry T^T) and i'm so glad you guys are all enjoying the endnotes so much, omg, i love you guys <3 <3 <3
> 
> e) _all the soulhugs forever_


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